UC-NRLF 


EX    LIBRIS 

THE    UNIVERSITY 

OF    CALIFORNIA 

FROM  THE  FUND 
ESTABLISHED  AT  YALE 

IN  1927  BY 
WILLIAM  H.  CROCKER 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1882 

SHEFFIELD  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL 

YALE  UNIVERSITY 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  THE 
SAME  AUTHOR 


The  Creed  of  Jesus  and  Other 
Sermons 


Social  Aspects  of  the  Cross 


Hymns  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
Edited  by  H.  S.  COFFIN  and  A.  W.  VERNON 

The  Same,  for  use  in  Baptist  Churches 
REV.  CHARLES  W.  GILKEY,  Co-editor 


University  Sermons 


The  Ten  Commandments  With  a  Christian 
Application  to  Present  Conditions 


Some  Christian  Convictions 


IN  A  DAY  OF 
SOCIAL  REBUILDING 


I  DO  not  envy  those  who  have  to  fight 
the  battle  of  Christianity  in  the  twen- 
tieth century.  Yes,  perhaps  I  do,  but 
it  will  be  a  stiff  fight. 

MARCUS  DODS, 

Later  Letters,  March  30,  1906. 


IN  A  DAY  OF 
SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

LECTURES  ON  THE  MINISTRY 
OF  THE  CHURCH 

BY 

HENRY  SLOANE  COFFIN 

MINISTER    IN    THE    MADISON    AVENUE    PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH    AND 

ASSOCIATE    PROFESSOR    IN    THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL 

SEMINARY.    NEW    YORK    CITY 


THE  FORTY-FOURTH  SERIES  OF  THE 

LYMAN   BEECHER  LECTURESHIP  ON   PREACHING 

IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
LONDON  •  HUMPHREY  MILFORD  •  OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXIX 


X///-3/ 


M&r  ^  QuM^L^ 

COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


First  published,  April,  1918. 

Second  printing,  January,  1919. 

Third  printing,  October,  1919. 


THE  LYMAN  BEECHER 
LECTURESHIP  FOUNDATION 

THE  Lyman  Beecher  Fund  in  the  School  of  Religion,  Yale  Uni- 
versity, was  established  May  2,  1872,  by  a  gift  of  ten  thousand 
dollars  from  Henry  W.  Sage,  Esq.,  then  of  Brooklyn,  New  York, 
in  memory  of  Lyman  Beecher,  of  the  Class  of  1797,  Yale  College, 
who  died  January  10,  1863.  In  accordance  with  the  wishes  of 
the  donor,  this  gift  was  devoted  by  the  Yale  Corporation  to  the 
establishment  of  a  Foundation  "to  be  designated  as  'The  Lyman 
Beecher  Lectureship  on  Preaching,'  to  be  filled  from  time  to  time, 
upon  the  appointment  of  the  Corporation,  by  a  minister  of  the 
Gospel,  of  any  evangelical  denomination,  who  has  been  markedly 
successful  in  the  special  work  of  the  Christian  ministry."  With 
the  authorization  of  the  donor,  the  Corporation,  in  May,  1882, 
voted  "that  henceforth  the  Lyman  Beecher  Lecturer  shall  be 
invited  to  lecture  on  a  branch  of  pastoral  theology  or  on  any 
other  topic  appropriate  to  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry." 
In  December,  1893,  the  donor  authorized  the  Corporation  "if  at 
any  time  they  should  deem  it  desirable  to  do  so,  to  appoint  a 
layman  instead  of  a  minister  to  deliver  the  course  of  lectures  on 
the  Lyman  Beecher  Foundation." 


TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF  AN  ENDEARING  TEACHER  AND 
ENLIGHTENING    FRIEND,    NOW    WITH    GOD, 

MARCUS  DODS, 

sometime  Principal  of  New  College,  Edinburgh, 
who  taught  his  students  to  read  widely,  to  face 
questions  with  an  open  mind,  to  despise  cant  and 
be  ashamed  of  laziness,  to  seek  them  that  are  without 
•rather  than  to  please  them  that  are  within,  to  be 
careful  for  nothing  but  loyalty  to  Christ ;  and  who 
saw  in  his  friends  excellencies,  neither  they  nor 
others  saw,  and  which  for  his  sake  they  would  fain 
attain. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  I  PAGE 

The  Day  and  the  Church          .  .  •    .  .13 

LECTURE  II 

The  Ministry  of  Reconciliation         .  .  .  .33 

LECTURE  III 

The  Ministry  of  Evangelism    .....        53 

LECTURE  IV 

The  Ministry  of  Worship        .....        73 

LECTURE  V 

The  Ministry  of  Teaching       .....        93 

LECTURE  VI 

The  Ministry  of  Organization  .  .  .  .113 

LECTURE  VII 

The  Ministry  of  Friendship     .....      134 

LECTURE  VIII 

Ministers  for  the  Day     ......      154 


LECTURE  I 
THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH 

IN  a  sermon,  preached  on  the  llth  of  January,  1852,  Frederick 
W.  Robertson  uttered  a  memorable  prophecy.  He  was  discussing 
the  various  attempts  which  the  human  race  had  made  to  construct 
itself  into  a  family — by  the  sword,  by  an  ecclesiastical  system, 
and  finally  by  trade.  Britain  was  then  in  the  heyday  of  its  com- 
mercial expansion,  and  had  glorified  the  contemporary  advances 
of  civilization  in  the  great  exhibition  at  the  Crystal  Palace  dur- 
ing the  previous  months.  The  political  economy  which  Carlyle 
fitly  called  "the  dismal  science"  was  in  almost  universal  vogue, 
and  an  individualistic  piety  was  the  exclusive  concern  of  the 
churches.  Robertson  said:  "We  are  told  that  that  which  chivalry 
and  honor  could  not  do,  personal  interest  will  do.  Trade  is  to 
bind  men  together  into  one  family.  When  they  feel  it  their 
interest  to  be  one,  they  will  be  brothers."  Then  he  prophesied: 
"Brethren,  that  which  is  built  on  selfishness  cannot  stand.  The 
system  of  personal  interest  must  be  shivered  into  atoms.  There- 
fore, we,  who  have  observed  the  ways  of  God  in  the  past,  are 
waiting  in  quiet  but  awful  expectation  until  He  shall  confound 
this  system  as  He  has  confounded  those  which  have  gone  before. 
And  it  may  be  effected  by  convulsions  more  terrible  and  more 
bloody  than  the  world  has  yet  seen.  While  men  are  talking  of 
peace,  and  of  the  great  progress  of  civi!i7fit:Vn,  there  is  heard  in 
the  distance  the  noise  of  armies  gathering  rank  on  rank;  east 
and  west,  north  and  south,  are  rolling  towards  us  the  crushing 
thunders  of  universal  war."  No  Hebrew  seer  ever  spoke  words 


14  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

that  have  been  more  strikingly  fulfilled.     We  stand  in  a  world 
that  has  been  "shivered  to  atoms." 

And  there  are  some  decided  advantages  in  starting  out  upon 
one's  life  work  in  a  day  when  so  clean  a  sweep  has  been  made 
of  things  that  were  doomed  to  perish.  As  men  whose  task  it  is 
to  interpret  the  ways  of  God  to  men,  you  and  I  may  be  happy 
that  He  has  given  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  to  many  fallacies 
that  hindered  the  Church's  efforts  to  shape  a  Christian  world. 
You  will  not  have  to  listen  to  the  commonplaces  of  commercial- 
istic  philosophy  that  competition  is  the  life  of  trade  and  enlight- 
ened self-interest  the  path  to  wisdom.  Competition  in  trade 
between  nations  has  been  a  principal  cause  of  ruin  and  death,  and 
very  enlightened  self-interest  has  led  to  the  most  colossal  blunder 
in  history.  You  are  not  likely  to  hear  progress  talked  of  as 
though  there  were  some  principle  resident  in  men  and  things  that 
fated  them  to  improve  and  to  work  out  right — a  view  of  life  that 
excludes  judgment  and  redemption.  We  know  that  we  live  in  a 
vastly  more  tragic  world  than  we  had  supposed,  where  things 
that  are  wrong,  if  unchecked,  get  worse  and  work  out  to  hideous 
catastrophes.  The  world  moves  in  no  steadily  advancing  evolu- 
tion ;  sin  brings  on  inevitable  doom ;  unless  redemptive  forces  pro- 
duce radical  changes,  nothing  remains  but  a  certain  fearful 
looking  for  of  judgment.  You  will  probably  not  be  faced  with 
the  bogie  which  haunted  many  minds  a  decade  ago  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  social  order  by  a  bloody  uprising  of  the  toiling  masses. 
That  destruction  has  come ;  but  the  destroyers  were  the  financially 
prosperous.  It  is  noteworthy  that  in  almost  every  warring  land 
the  working  classes  were  the  most  loth  to  fight,  while  those  in 
control  of  capital  were  readiest  to  embark  in  the  enterprise  of 
slaughter.  Incidentally  the  war  itself  has  compelled  transforma- 
tions in  industry  and  commerce  that  go  a  long  distance  towards 
establishing  social  control  in  the  economic  order.  You  will  not, 
for  a  while  at  least,  have  to  contend  with  a  listless  indifference 
to  wrong.  The  hideous  and  hateful  iniquities  which  have  been 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  15 

perpetrated  by  German  and  Turk  have  roused  men  to  a  hot 
indignation.  It  is  yours  to  keep  that  holy  wrath  ablaze,  and  to 
direct  it  to  the  destruction,  both  abroad  and  at  home,  of  those 
things  which  mar  human  brotherhood.  You  will  not  be  told  (let 
us  hope)  that  adequate  military  preparedness  is  the  surest  safe- 
guard of  peace.  The  entire  system  of  preserving  international 
equilibrium  by  mutual  fear  has  been  discredited.  The  huge  arma- 
ments of  the  nations  have  demonstrably  proved  provocatives  of 
war. 

We  still  have  judgment  here;  that  we  but  teach 
Bloody  instructions,  which  being  taught  return 
To  plague  the  inventor. 

The  state  of  mind  that  produces  and  maintains  a  vast  navy  and 
an  army  recruited  by  the  enforced  service  of  every  young  man 
capable  of  bearing  arms  is  an  utterly  unchristian  confidence  in 
superior  might.  While  one  nation  remains  of  that  mind,  the  rest 
are  terrorized  from  dropping  a  burden  only  less  costly  and  less 
hampering  to  all  constructive  social  advance  than  war  itself. 
Intimidating  force  as  a  keeper  of  an  orderly  world  is  in  well- 
deserved  disrepute.  You  will  not  be  at  the  disadvantage  of  sum- 
moning to  sacrifice  those  who  hardly  know  what  the  word  means. 
Men  limited  their  liabilities  and  gave  a  fractional  allegiance  to 
the  cause  of  Christ ;  but  a  generation  which  has  seen  the  nation's 
most  promising  sons  pour  out  their  blood  for  an  unselfish  cause, 
and  whole  peoples  willingly  impoverish  themselves  for  a  world's 
deliverance,  understands  the  terms  on  which  Jesus  Christ  asks 
their  enlistment  for  the  Kingdom  of  God — that  their  purse,  their 
person,  their  extremest  means  must  "lie  all  unlock'd  to  its 
occasions."  You  will  not  hear  the  easy-going  spectator's  com- 
ment on  life  that  "it  takes  all  kinds  of  people  to  make  a  world." 
Some  kinds  manifestly  unmake  it;  and  no  man  dare  seat  himself 
comfortably  in  an  observer's  chair  and  watch  the  varied  types 
of  men  and  women  play  their  parts ;  some  are  setting  the  whole 


16  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

building  on  fire.  If  disaster  is  to  be  averted,  a  man,  however 
tolerant,  must  bestir  himself  to  prevent  some  roles  from  being 
enacted,  and  to  put  a  new  heart  and  a  right  spirit  into  the  actors. 
Yes,  greed,  shallow  optimism,  distrust  of  the  lowly,  easy  tolerance 
of  wrong,  pride  of  power,  unfamiliarity  with  sacrifice,  and  the 
self-amusing  enjoyment  of  life  as  one  finds  it — the  subtlest  and 
toughest  opponents  of  the  cause  of  Christ — have  been  exposed 
and  condemned.  You  begin  your  ministry  in  a  world  that  has 
been  "delivered  unto  Satan"  (to  employ  a  New  Testament  idea) 
that  it  might  be  taught  what  not  to  trust.  You  receive  it  fresh 
from  graduation  in  that  school,  with  its  lessons  thoroughly 
impressed  upon  its  mind;  for  we  must  give  the  devil  his  due  and 
account  him  an  expert  instructor  in  those  branches  in  which  he 
is  himself  proficient. 

But  the  apostle  who  placed  Hymenaeus  and  Alexander  under 
such  tuition  only  expected  negative  results — the  unlearning  of 
undesirable  habits ;  all  constructive  education  must  be  had  under 
another  Master.  And  as  leaders  in  the  Christian  Church  we  face 
certain  serious  difficulties  in  the  way  of  bringing  our  immediate 
contemporaries  into  the  school  of  Christ. 

One  is  the  feeling  that  the  Church  itself  has  been  shown  to  be 
powerless  to  build  a  social  order  that  will  hold  together.  "If 
the  foundations  be  destroyed,  what  hath  the  righteous  wrought?" 
We  must  freely  and  penitently  admit  that  the  Church  in  the 
immediate  past  has  been  tried  in  the  balance  and  found  wanting. 
But  so,  too,  have  education  that  should  have  taught  men  the 
irrationality  of  war,  and  international  law  with  its  covenants 
torn  to  "scraps  of  paper,"  and  social  idealism  which  was  so  confi- 
dent that  the  workers  of  the  world  had  reached  a  sense  of  brother- 
hood that  ensured  them  against  slaying  each  other.  And  we  go 
on  to  point  out  that  the  social  order  which  has  crumbled  to  bits 
was  to  a  very  slight  degree  of  the  Church's  construction.  The 
chief  criticism  of  the  Church  in  the  years  preceding  the  war  was 
the  insignificance  of  its  influence  upon  social  relations.  While 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  17 

there  was  much  talk  of  the  social  gospel,  the  fact  remained  that 
many  of  the  most  socially  minded  men  and  women  had  ceased  to 
look  to  the  Christian  Church  as  a  source  of  inspiration.  A  recent 
novel,  notable  for  its  accurate  pictures  of  certain  aspects  of  New 
York  life,  shows  us  a  woman,  the  head  of  a  large  public  school 
and  the  chief  factor  for  social  betterment  in  an  industrial  neigh- 
borhood, going  with  her  father  to  a  concert  in  Carnegie  Hall  on 
a  Sunday  afternoon.  The  father  cannot  help  recalling  the  Sun- 
day customs  of  a  few  years  before — church-going  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  the  family  and  their  visitors  spending  the  evening 
about  a  piano  singing  hymns.  "He  could  almost  hear  from  some- 
where," comments  the  novelist,  "the  echoes  of  'Abide  with  me.' ' 
But  in  that  most  socially  devoted  daughter's  thought  the  Church 
and  the  Church's  religion  have  ceased  to  occupy  a  place.  To  her 
and  to  many  like  her  the  Church  is  negligible. 

To  be  sure  she  was  partly  mistaken.  There  is  no  means  of 
estimating  how  much  sooner  the  crash  might  have  come,  how 
much  more  terrific  it  might  have  been,  and  how  much  worse  it 
might  have  left  us,  but  for  the  quietly  leavening  ministry  of  the 
Church  and  its  kindred  agencies.  In  our  army  camps,  where  one 
felt  how  weak  were  the  moral  restraints  that  checked  brute  lusts, 
the  Christian  Associations  and  the  chaplains  were  turned  to  as 
the  only  stays  to  bestial  demoralization.  And,  further,  whatever 
may  be  said  in  just  condemnation  of  the  Church's  futility,  we 
can  point  amid  the  scene  of  almost  universal  wreck  and  ruin  to 
social  relations  in  which  the  principles  of  Christ  were  embodied 
and  be  reassured  by  the  fact  that  they  stand  unharmed.  Wher- 
ever in  diplomacy,  in  industry,  in  family  life,  in  the  personal 
dealings  of  man  with  man,  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  has  been  dominant, 
there  is  no  sign  of  damage.  We  can  challenge  the  world  to  show 
us  the  instance  where  love  like  Christ's  has  been  employed  in 
social  construction  and  failed.  True  the  instances  are  patheti- 
cally rare,  but  they  are  none  the  less  significant.  The  Church's 
failure  is  not  due  to  lack  of  means  with  which  to  build  an  enduring 


18  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

world-order,  but  to  their  non-employment.  The  disaster  that  has 
ensued  upon  the  use  of  other  means  gives  us  the  chance  to  come 
forward  and  ask  to  be  accorded  a  fair  trial,  and  to  back  up  our 
plea  with  a  reasonable  number  of  cases  where  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
has  been  applied  socially  and  has  splendidly  succeeded. 

A  second  difficulty  is  the  widespread  ignorance  of  the  social 
aspects  of  the  Christian  faith  in  a  land  as  nominally  Christian  as 
ours.  Millions  of  our  population  have  come  from  lands  where 
Christianity  is  identified  with  the  forces  of  reaction,  and  they 
never  think  of  it  in  connection  with  their  social  ideals  and  aspira- 
tions. Millions  more  have  never  heard  it  presented  here  save  as  a 
means  of  individual  salvation  and  a  standard  of  individual  con- 
duct. Where  there  is  genuine  personal  Christianity,  however 
contracted  its  social  outlook,  there  is  a  foundation  upon  which 
one  can  build:  the  Bible  will  be  revered  as  an  authority,  and  its 
social  teaching  can  be  brought  home  to  the  conscience.  But  we 
have  to  remember  that  the  Bible  is  a  practically  unknown  volume 
to  the  great  majority  of  our  American  people.  Among  the  well- 
to-do  one  generation  has  grown  up  with  little  religious  training; 
their  parents  are  living  on  the  remainders  of  a  devouter  child- 
hood, and  the  heritage  of  the  faith  is  more  attenuated  in  their 
children.  Among  the  industrial  workers  our  Protestant  churches 
possess  a  notoriously  small  following.  The  result  is  that  there 
are  not  many  people  so  aware  of  the  contents  of  the  Christian 
faith  that  they  look  eagerly  to  the  Church  for  leadership  in  social 
rebuilding. 

A  third  impediment  is  the  ill  condition  of  the  Church  itself  to 
fulfil  such  leadership.  Needless  denominational  divisions,  rendered 
even  more  ludicrously  trifling  by  the  momentous  issues  between 
forces  Christian  and  antichristian  brought  to  light  in  this  war, 
make  many  of  our  churches  pitifully  small  and  weak  organiza- 
tions, whose  energies  are  largely  engrossed  in  the  sordid  struggle 
for  economic  self-preservation.  If  by  all  manner  of  devices 
(some  of  them  often  very  undignified),  they  can  pay  their 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  19 

expenses,  and  pathetically  cheap  outlays  at  that,  they  are  rated 
as  successful.  Such  feeble  institutions  cannot  be  creative  factors 
in  their  communities. 

And  far  too  many  of  them  think  of  maintaining  themselves 
as  organizations  and  keeping  their  existing  machinery  in  motion, 
rather  than  of  giving  life  to  the  society  in  and  for  which  they 
exist.  One  hears  ministers  and  office-bearers  discussing  how  to 
secure  a  congregation  for  the  second  service  or  attendants  at  the 
prayer-meeting,  instead  of  asking  what  groups  in  the  neighbor- 
hood are  not  supplied  with  religious  inspirations,  and  whether  a 
second  service  or  a  prayer-meeting  are  adapted  to  provide  these 
supplies.  Why  should  there  be  a  second  service,  or  why  not  a 
third  and  a  fourth?  Why  must  there  be  a 'prayer-meeting,  or 
why  not  half  a  dozen?  No  factory  concerns  itself  chiefly  with 
keeping  its  machinery  going,  but  with  producing  goods  that  are 
wanted.  No  church  represents  the  Son  of  man  which  does  not 
invariably  think  of  itself  as  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to 
minister,  and  adjust  itself  to  fill  the  needs  of  all  who  can  be 
served  by  it. 

Further,  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  out  of  every  thousand 
of  our  churches  minister  to  constituencies  drawn  from  a  single 
social  stratum,  or  from  a  few  closely  allied  strata,  in  the  com- 
munity. Very  rarely  does  a  congregation  include  employers  and 
workers,  the  older  American  stock  and  the  newer.  Our  churches 
are  class-bound  in  their  outlooks  and  sympathies.  There  is 
pathos  in  finding  the  Puritan  churches,  which  at  one  epoch  were 
the  protagonists  of  democracy  among  the  forces  that  conserve 
existing  social  groupings  and  fail  to  be  factors  in  fusing  our 
varied  population  into  a  brotherhood. 

And  many  of  our  churches  are  dealing  in  their  worship  and 
teaching  with  religious  ideas  which  are  unrelated  to  the  current 
thought  of  men.  It  is  not  that  they  are  too  theological — theology 
is  simply  thought  concerning  God  and  the  life  with  Him,  and 
the  more  theological  a  church  is  the  better,  provided  it  handle 


20  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

living  theology.  Nor  is  it  that  they  are  not  sufficiently  "practi- 
cal" (to  employ  a  sorely  overworked  word).  American  preach- 
ing is  not  lacking  in  definite  application.  If  anything  our 
churches  are  too  "practical,"  making  religion  something  useful, 
rather  than  something  fertile;  something  to  be  immediately  done, 
rather  than  the  establishment  of  a  relation  with  the  Unseen  out 
of  which  many  things  will  spontaneously  come.  But  the  ideas 
and  the  language'  used  in  them  have  little  connexion  with  the 
aspirations  and  needs  of  the  great  mass  of  men  as  they  under- 
stand themselves.  Many  a  sermon  seems  to  them  to  contain,  like 
Glendower's  talk  to  Hotspur,  "such  a  deal  of  skimble-skamble 
stuff  as  puts  them  from  their  faith."  A  penetrating  writer,  who 
fell  in  the  war,  entitles  a  suggestive  chapter,  "The  Religion  of 
the  Inarticulate,"  in  which  he  points  out  that  the  ordinary  run 
of  British  soldiers  "never  connected  the  goodness  in  which  they 
believed  with  the  God  in  whom  the  chaplains  said  they  ought  to 
believe."  He  rightly  insists  that  we  must  find  our  point  of  con- 
tact in  showing  men  that  "Christianity  is  the  explanation  and 
the  justification  and  the  triumph  of  all  that  they  do  now  really 
believe  in."  This  means  that  in  every  age  the  Church  must  recast 
its  worship  and  restate  its  teaching  to  meet  the  immediate  neces- 
sities of  men.  The  eternal  God  may  abide  the  same  through  all 
generations,  but  life  with  Him  varies  with  the  circumstances  under 
which  it  must  be  lived.  A  mobile  and  plastic  Church  is  demanded, 
ever  ready  to  adapt  itself  to  furnish  inspirations  to  men  and 
women  and  little  children  in  any  conditions  under  which  it  finds 
them.  Principal  Rainy  once  said:  "As  things  change  around  us, 
immobility  may  become  at  once  the  most  insidious  and  the  most 
pernicious  form  of  inconsistency."  The  fierce  heat  of  the  war 
has  made  fluid  many  things  formerly  metallic.  Let  us  hope  that 
the  forms  of  Church  organization  and  doctrine  are  among  them, 
that  they  may  be  run  into  more  serviceable  moulds. 

Worst  of  all,  our  Protestant  Churches  have  not  only  parted 
with  their  relation  to  a  world-wide  organization — the  Universal 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  21 

Church,  but  they  have  lost  the  feeling  of  their  unity  with  the 
whole  Body  of  Christ  throughout  the  earth,  and  the  desire  to  see 
that  unity  effectively  functioning  through  some  institution  that 
will  enable  it  to  speak  and  act  as  the  Catholic  Church  of  Christ. 
One  may  heartily  disagree  with  the  conception  of  the  papacy, 
and  one  may  think  lightly  of  the  moral  role  which  the  present 
pope  has  played  during  a  contest  when  great  issues  of  right  and 
wrong  were  so  conspicuously  to  the  fore,  but  it  was  no  small 
thing  that  his  position  enabled  him  to  speak  to  the  nations.  He 
represented  but  a  fragment  of  Christendom,  and  probably  has 
misrepresented  the  enlightened  conscience  of  a  great  part  of  that, 
but  through  him  a  world-wide  Church  might  theoretically  speak. 
We  cannot  but  reverence  the  ideal,  see  its  practical  worth,  and 
set  ourselves  to  devise  its  more  effective  embodiment.  National 
churches,  although  essential  for  their  purpose,  are  not  enough. 
We  think  in  world-terms,  and  must  apply  them  to  the  organization 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Lesser  terms  do  not  fit  the  ideal  before 
us  in  the  New  Testament  nor  the  actual  necessities  of  our  day. 
But  the  most  serious  obstacle  we  encounter  is  as  elusive  and 
invulnerable  as  the  great  Boyg  in  Ibsen's  Peer  Gynt — a  vague- 
ness in  the  thought  of  God  and  an  absence  of  the  vivid  sense  of 
fellowship  with  Him.  This  is  neither  new  nor  peculiar  to  our 
day ;  it  is  the  common  complaint  of  men  of  faith  in  all  ages ;  but 
it  has  gained  added  force  in  ours.  In  the  last  century  the  world's 
thought  underwent  revolutionary  changes  which  required  a  radi- 
cal restatement  of  religious  convictions.  This  restatement  has 
been  very  imperfectly  assimilated  by  the  mass  of  people,  and 
indeed  the  majority  of  pulpits  still  state  the  Christian  message 
in  terms  that  cannot  be  fitted  into  the  views  of  the  world  held  by 
modern  men.  And  those  who  have  succeeded  in  rationalizing  their 
beliefs  often  find  great  difficulty  in  feeling  God's  actuality.  Some 
religious  leaders  have  comforted  themselves  by  speaking  of  the 
"unconscious  religion"  of  devoted  lives  who  serve  duty,  or  truth, 
or  beauty,  unaware  that  they  serve  the  living  God.  A  few  have 


22  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

even  discussed  a  godless  Christianity,  consisting  of  the  spirit 
of  sympathy  and  service.  But  such  minimum  faiths  are  feeble 
substitutes  for  the  sense  of  personal  companionship  with  the 
Lord  of  earth  and  heaven,  which  is  the  historic  experience  of 
Biblical  religion.  A  pathetically  small  number  of  persons  know 
how  to  worship,  and  services  of  worship  are  slovenly  conducted 
and  barren  of  results  in  many,  possibly  in  most,  churches.  Only 
a  rare  figure,  here  and  there,  gives  the  impression  of  walking 
with  God.  The  atmosphere  that  has  wrapped  our  country  and 
the  entire  western  world  during  our  lifetime  has  been  so  heavy 
with  material  interests  that  the  spirit  of  man  has  been  breath- 
ing with  difficulty.  It  may  be  that,  like  an  electric  storm  on  a 
humid  day,  the  war  will  have  cleared  the  air;  but  as  yet  we  have 
scarcely  felt  any  relief;  some  would  call  the  atmosphere  muggier 
than  ever. 

Over  against  all  this  there  are  several  most  heartening  facts 
in  our  present  situation.  One  is  the  manifest  desirability  of  the 
assistance  of  a  God.  A  great  gain  of  having  a  world  in  frag- 
ments on  our  hands  is  the  inevitable  longing  for  Someone  wiser 
and  abler  than  ourselves  to  piece  it  together  and  get  it  going. 
When  men  found  themselves  in  a  social  order  which,  so  far  as 
they  personally  were  concerned,  was  functioning  fairly  com- 
fortably, religion  seemed  a  luxury.  If  one  liked  it,  let  him  have 
it,  but  it  was  a  matter  of  taste.  With  an  entire  social  order  to 
be  refashioned,  some  sort  of  deity  appears  indispensable  for 
everybody.  The  problems  are  too  intricate,  the  demands  too 
exacting,  the  strains  too  draining  for  man.  The  endeavor  to 
readjust  human  relations  usually  drives  men  towards  religion. 
Viscount  Morley,  reading  J.  S.  Mill's  article  on  The  Claims  of 
Labour,  queries  whether  Mill's  drift  towards  Theism  did  not  fit 
in  with  his  social  bent.  In  the  present  lecturer's  undergraduate 
days  in  Yale  College,  a  brilliant  Lyman  Beecher  Lecture  was 
entitled,  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt.  That  caption  would 
not  be  thought  of  today.  Ours,  while  not  an  age  of  faith,  is  an 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  23 

age  of  wistfulness.  Whether  believers  themselves  or  not,  men 
are  interested  in  religion.  In  the  most  suggestive  novel  of  the 
war  the  chief  character  sees  it  through  to  God.  A  typical  man 
of  the  last  generation,  who  had  passed  from  evangelicalism  to 
agnosticism,  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  wrote  to  James  Russell  Lowell: 
"I  am  content  to  take  things  as  they  come,  and  fight  it  out  as 
well  as  I  can."  Few  thoughtful  persons  feel  in  that  way  now. 
They  may  have  no  assurance  of  a  God,  but  they  cannot  con- 
tentedly take  things  as  they  come;  things  that  come  are  too 
terrible;  and  their  own  fighting  does  not  suffice.  They  look  long- 
ingly for  One  to  lead  in  the  endeavor  to  make  an  earth  fit  for 
human  beings  to  live  in.  Never  was  there  a  more  eager  age  to 
which  a  convinced  herald  of  the  Most  Highest  could  cry :  "Behold 
your  God !" 

A  second  asset  is  the  quickened  sense  of  social  obligation.  This 
is  in  part  the  result  of  long  centuries  of  Christian  training.  We 
are  likely  to  undervalue  the  cumulative  gains  of  our  Christian 
inheritance  until  we  hear  it  appraised  by  those  to  whom  it  has 
come  as  a  novelty.  In  the  Forbidden  City  of  Pekin,  a  year  and! 
more  ago,  one  of  the  secretaries  of  China's  first  president  said! 
to  me:  "I  often  read  the  sacred  books  of  the  various  great 
teachers.  They  all  seem  to  me  to  commend  much  the  same  vir- 
tues— courage,  unselfishness,  courtesy,  loyalty.  And  I  have  asked 
myself  what  is  the  difference  between  your  great  Teacher  and 
the  others.  It  seems  to  me  that  He  has  the  power  to  create  a 
more  delicate  conscience."  Could  there  be  a  loftier  or  a  more 
discriminating  tribute  to  the  worth  of  Jesus  Christ  for  an  age 
of  social  reconstruction?  And  in  part  the  present  sharpened 
sense  of  social  responsibility  is  due  to  factors  that  have  been 
playing  upon  us  in  the  years  immediately  preceding  and  during 
the  war.  A  widespread  social  movement,  showing  itself  in  new 
ethical  standards,  in  industrial  upheavals  and  readjustments,  in 
political  platforms,  in  reinterpretations  of  religious  convictions 
and  ideals,  has  been  gathering  momentum  for  at  least  a  genera- 


24  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

tion.  In  some  respects  its  immediate  advances  have  been  checked 
by  the  war,  for  men  fear  to  hazard  innovations  in  "a  scrambling 
and  unquiet  time";  but  its  force  has  been  vastly  augmented  and 
many  of  its  ends  have  been  attained  with  accelerated  speed.  And 
there  is  no  question  but  that  the  war  itself  has  brought  home  to 
many  Americans  the  obligations  of  citizenship.  Apart  altogether 
from  any  specific  results  that  may  have  come  of  it,  there  was 
a  moral  effect  in  a  state's  requiring  every  inhabitant  between  six- 
teen and  fifty  to  register,  and  put  down  what  he  or  she  could  do 
for  the  commonweal.  The  Conscription  Act  forced  a  grim  duty 
upon  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  young  men.  Civic  responsi- 
bility must  react  upon  Church  responsibility.  We  have  been 
learning  that  all  our  group-relations  involve  group-duties.  The 
Church,  no  less  than  the  State,  can  and  must  demand  universal 
service  of  those  who  enjoy  its  privileges.  The  quickened  con- 
science of  the  community  outside  the  Church  is  an  incalculable 
Christian  asset.  Men  are  fitted  to  appreciate  Jesus,  whose  chief 
appeal  is  to  conscience,  and  to  see  and  assume  their  obligations 
in  the  Great  Community  into  which  He  ushers  them.  Our  con- 
temporaries, both  by  the  inheritance  of  Christian  centuries  and 
by  the  special  discipline  of  recent  years,  are  "a  people  prepared 
for  Him." 

A  third  encouragement  is  the  kindling  of  social  hopes.  Apoca- 
lypses have  always  been  written  in  bad  times.  When  an  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  or  a  persecuting  Caesar  threatened  the  believing  com- 
munity with  extinction,  its  faith  rose  to  its  enthroned  God  and 
saw  Him  shortly  ushering  in  His  blessed  reign.  "Ranging 
through  the  tamer  grounds  of  these  our  unimaginative  days," 
men,  suddenly  confronted  by  the  appalling  sights  of  this  war, 
found  their  minds  picturing  a  saner  and  juster  world-order,  guar- 
anteed against  such  outbreaks  of  mad  destruction.  Some  of 
these  apocalypses  were  lawyers'  visions  of  an  earth  made  orderly 
by  international  jurisprudence;  others  were  dreams  of  financiers 
with  plans  for  the  use  of  credit  to  prevent  strife.  Economists 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  25 

have  come  forward  with  schemes  of  trade  and  tariff  adjustments, 
and  a  distinguished  philosopher  linked  his  "hope  of  the  great 
community"  with  a  project  of  international  insurance.  Each 
drew  his  picture  in  accordance  with  the  interests  of  his  own  mind ; 
but  the  point  is  that  such  pictures  are  being  drawn.  They  are 
"Songs  before  Sunrise."  Men  desperately  dissatisfied  with  things 
as  they  are  cannot  keep  from  imagining  a  new  world.  Love  of 
"this  present  age"  has  always  been  the  despair  of  the  Christian 
preacher.  From  the  first  salvation  has  meant  detachment  from 
things  as  they  are  and  attachment  to  things  as  they  should  be. 
Dissatisfied  men  are  predisposed  to  faith  in  a  living  God  who 
supplies  "assurance  of  things  hoped  for."  And  once  convinced 
of  Him,  their  hopes  already  alive  renew  their  strength. 

Paradise  and  Groves 

Elysian,  Fortunate  Fields — like  those  of  old 
Sought  in  the  Atlantic  Main — why  should  they  be 
A  history  only  of  departed  things, 
Or  a  mere  fiction  of  what  never  was  ? 

The  Church  finds  in  the  wistful  a  ready  hearing  for  its  vision 
of  a  world  remade  by  the  loving  reign  of  the  God  and  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

Still  another  help  is  the  importance  every  intelligent  believer 
now  concedes  to  the  corporate  organization  of  the  Christian 
forces.  War  stimulates  the  herd  instinct ;  there  has  been  an 
increase  in  national  solidarity  in  all  the  belligerent  countries. 
Danger  and  difficulty  have  welded  the  peoples.  The  peril  to  the 
Christian  life  and  the  pressure  of  antichristian  forces  are  pro- 
ducing a  similar  drawing  together  of  the  followers  of  Christ. 
In  Protestant  circles  individualism  has  been  so  developed  that 
the  embodiment  of  the  Spirit  in  the  believing  group  has  been 
made  little  of.  Personal  relations  with  God  were  primary;  rela- 
tions with  fellow-believers  were  of  minor  moment.  The  Church 
has  occupied  a  subordinate  place  in  Protestant  thought,  and  has 


26  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

sometimes  been  lost  sight  of  altogether.  The  individual  Christian 
felt  the  need  of  fellowship  with  kindred  souls  for  his  own  growth 
in  truth  and  faith  and  craved  tneir  partnership  in  service;  but 
a  small  fellowship  sufficed.  There  seemed  nothing  crippling  in 
belonging  to  a  diminutive  sect ;  their  fewness  often  gave  its  mem- 
bers a  more  intimate  sense  of  solidarity.  Its  inability  to  do  large 
things  was  never  realized  as  a  handicap;  for  did  it  not  succeed 
in  the  gigantic  task  of  saving  souls,  and  building  them  up  into 
fair-sized  sons  and  daughters  of  God?  But  the  imperative  need 
of  today  is  a  regenerated  social  order  in  which  saved  souls  shall 
be  safe ;  and  that  requires  the  combined  effort  of  every  Christian 
for  its  accomplishment.  A  national  Church  is  demanded  for  a 
nation's  renewing,  and  a  universal  Church  for  a  world's  recon- 
struction. War  conditions  have  taught  us  that  individual  liberty 
can  only  be  secured  by  subordinating  liberty  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  social  group  within  which  the  liberty  we  prize  is  possible. 
A  freedom  that  is  gained  at  the  cost  of  unity  does  not  leave  us 
free  as  Christians  to  accomplish  what  we  desire.  Assuredly  we 
are  not  prepared  to  part  with  the  dearly  won  liberties  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation;  they  belong  to  the  very  essence  of  the 
Christian  life  itself,  to  our  sonship  with  God  in  Christ ;  but  we 
believe  them  compatible  with  a  united  democratic  Church, — the 
Republic  of  Christ  (to  employ  a  phrase  used  by  Zwingli) — and 
our  emphasis  today  is  not  on  individual  freedom  but  on  collective 
life.  We  are  ready  to  surrender  personal  preferences,  even  when 
these  are  entwined  with  hallowed  traditions,  to  bring  ourselves 
under  a  reasonable  ecclesiastical  discipline,  and  to  accord  fellow- 
Christians  a  larger  consideration  and  sympathy  in  order  to  attain 
that  corporate  Christian  action  which  is  essential  if  the  world  is 
to  be  reshaped  after  the  mind  of  Christ.  We  long  for  a  Church 
truly  catholic  in  its  inclusion  of  every  life  ruled  by  the  Master's 
Spirit.  If  we  must  content  ourselves  with  an  organized  and 
operating  unity  considerably  less  than  this,  we  want  as  big  and 
as  comprehensive  a  church  as  we  can  get.  The  thoughtful  Chris- 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  27 

tian  does  not  regard  his  relations  with  fellow-believers  as  trifling 
matters.  He  must  align  himself  with  as  many  of  them  as  possible, 
supplementing  his  meagre  religious  life  from  their  ample  dis- 
coveries, warming  his  zeal  at  the  fire  of  their  collective  enthusiasm, 
and  combining  his  skill  and'  energy  with  theirs  in  a  united  under- 
taking for  the  establishment  of  the  earth-wide  reign  of  God.  The 
day  of  separatist  piety  has  gone;  the  Church  as  the  functioning 
Body  of  Christ  has  come  to  her  own. 

What,  then,  is  the  Church  of  Christ?  We  look  back  to  its 
arrival  at  self-consciousness  and  classic  self-expression  in  the 
New  Testament.  It  is  a  fellowship — that  is  its  distinctive  note. 
It  is  a  divine  fellowship  whose  members  are  in  living  union  with 
Jesus  Christ,  with  His  God  and  Father,  and  corporately  possess 
His  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  a  distinctive  fellowship,  aware  of  its  differ- 
entiation from  the  world  of  men  by  barriers  as  marked  as  those 
of  race  and  nationality — "an  elect  race,  a  holy  nation,"  with 
their  citizenship  in  a  heavenly  commonwealth.  It  is  an  inclusive 
fellowship,  embracing  every  life  to  which  Jesus  is  Lord — a  single 
living  organism,  from  which  it  is  as  impossible  for  a  disciple  of 
Christ  to  be  severed  as  for  foot  or  ear  to  dissociate  itself  from 
the  body.  It  is  a  visible  and  realized  fellowship  whose  members 
show  their  oneness  with  each  other  in  Christ  by  many  tokens — 
the  breaking  of  bread  in  communion  with  their  Lord  and  with 
one  another,  right  hands  of  fellowship  for  kindred  tasks,  hospi- 
tality to  visiting  believers,  the  use  of  personal  gifts  for  the  enrich- 
ment of  the  whole  group,  the  attempt  to  embody  brotherhood  in 
a  community-life  ruled  by  the  Spirit  of  love.  It  is  a  priestly 
fellowship,  all  of  whose  members  have  direct  access  to  God  as  His 
friendly  sons  and  daughters,  and  in  whose  collective  life,  as  in  a 
hallowed  temple,  God  Himself  dwells.  It  is  a  gtfted  fellowship. 
The  Holy  Spirit  bestows  upon  every  member  somewhat  with  which 
to  serve,  and  it  is  His  charism  of  leadership,  recognized  by  the 
spiritually  discerning  Church,  which  impels  the  brotherhood  to 
set  apart  a  man  for  any  distinctive  ministry.  It  is  an  authori- 


28  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

tative  fellowship,  in  which  as  a  theocracy  God  governs,  through 
which  as  a  brotherhood  His  will  is  discovered  by  the  judgment 
of  the  whole  fellowship,  and  by  which,  an  Ecclesia  regnans,  that 
will  is  set  forth  to  the  world. 

This  fellowship,  the  Church  of  Christ,  you  and  I  are  to  build 
up,  to  serve  and  to  lead  for  the  world's  rebuilding.  We  cannot 
have  too  high  a  doctrine  of  the  Church;  this  is  a  day  for  "high 
churchmen."  The  New  Testament  draws  no  distinction  between 
an  invisible  and  a  visible  Church.  In  human  experience  there  is 
always  a  difference  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual;  but  that 
does  not  allow  us  to  hold  a  lofty  doctrine  of  a  theoretical  Church 
and  content  ourselves  with  low  conceptions  of  the  actual  Church. 
The  Church  must  become  what  it  is. 

The  Church  with  which  we  have  to  do  must  be  a  fellowship. 
It  is  not  a  collection  of  believers  but  a  coalition.  Their  lives  com- 
bine and  cohere  and  coalesce  in  a  common  purpose.  There  is 
more  in  the  union  of  Barnabas  and  Saul  than  the  addition  of 
one  loyal  Christian  to  another.  It  is  the  combination  of  Barnabas 
plus  Saul  and  Saul  plus  Barnabas.  One  might  represent  it  alge- 
braically as(B  +  S)X(S  +  B).  That  is  why  in  Biblical 
mathematics  if  one  chases  a  thousand,  two  put  not  twice,  but  ten 
times  as  many  to  flight.  The  Church  is  a  fusion  in  a  single 
allegiance  and  aim  of  Christians,  each  of  whom  is  magnified  and 
enriched  many  fold  by  contacts  with  fellow-Christians.  They 
"agree  as  touching  what  they  ask,"  and  are  "gathered  together" 
in  Christ's  name. 

The  Church  must  be  a  divine  fellowship,  composed  of  men, 
women  and  children  in  union  with  Christ.  When  a  minister  is 
captivated  by  a  vision  of  redeemed  society,  he  may  lose  sight  of 
the  necessity  of  linking  individuals  mind  to  Mind,  conscience  to 
Conscience,  with  Jesus  Christ.  Let  him  recall  that  he  works  for 
social  redemption  through  a  redeemed  fellowship.  A  congrega- 
tion, however  small,  in  which  God  has  His  habitation  because  each 
member  is  builded  on  Christ  and  all  are  builded  together,  is  a 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  29 

centre  of  divine  power,  and  can  turn  a  community  upside  down 
and  set  it  right  side  up ;  and  no  other  group,  however  large,  can 
do  anything  of  the  sort. 

It  must  be  a  distinctive  fellowship.  A  city  set  on  a  hill  cannot 
be  hid,  and  the  Church  cannot  lie  all  over  the  ethical  slope  and 
run  down  into  the  valley.  She  cannot  sanction  prevalent  indus- 
trial competition  and  present  methods  of  settling  international 
differences,  and  recreate  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  Christian 
righteousness.  She  cannot  endorse  current  standards  of  business 
and  current  ideals  of  patriotism  and  expect  to  regenerate  the 
social  order.  As  a  new  race  this  fellowship  draws  its  living  mind 
from  the  Most  High  through  Christ;  its  ideals  in  every  age  and 
for  every  situation  must  be  contemporaneously  born  of  Him.  As 
a  holy  nation  its  members  form  a  group  with  a  unity  of  its  own 
that  must  be  respected,  as  truly  as  we  revere  the  solidarity  of 
any  nation,  small  or  large;  and  it  has  a  right  to  insist  that- its 
fellowship  be  unbroken  by  the  arrangement  of  the  world  order. 
Its  citizens  have  a  supreme  allegiance  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  their 
citizenship  in  any  commonwealth  on  earth  must  be  fulfilled  under 
superior  loyalty  to  His  heavenly  community. 

It  must  be  an  inclusive  fellowship.  Richard  Baxter,  summoned 
to  London  to  assist  in  settling  "the  fundamentals  of  religion," 
made  a  proposal,  to  which  it  was  objected  that  a  Papist  or  a 
Socinian  might  subscribe  it,  and  is  said  to  have  replied:  "So 
much  the  better,  and  so  much  the  fitter  it  is  to  be  the  matter 
of  concord."  The  Church  is  organically  one,  the  living  Body  of 
Christ,  of  which  every  believer  is  a  member.  The  organization 
must  include  the  organism  and  be  fitted  to  express  its  totality. 
We  find  ourselves  actually  in  the  apostolic  succession  of  the 
varied  communion  of  the  saints  of  all  the  centuries,  through  whom 
as  a  matter  of  historic  fact  the  life  of  God  in  Christ  has  passed 
to  us.  We  cannot  repudiate  our  spiritual  ancestry.  They  are 
all  in  the  Church  of  Christ  of  yesterday  of  which  we  have  been 
born;  all  their  descendants  in  the  faith  are  the  Church  of  today. 


30  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

It  must  be  a  visible  and  realized  fellowship  whose  members  feel 
and  show  their  kinship  in  God.  Our  country  has  passed  from  a 
federation  of  states  to  which  their  inhabitants  felt  a  supreme 
loyalty  to  a  nation  in  which  state  allegiance  is  subordinated  to 
national.  The  Church,  with  its  communions  partly  federated 
already,  must  pass  through  a  similar  development.  The  ways  in 
which  a  congregation  will  share  one  another's  inspirations  and 
bear  one  another's  burdens  will  vary  in  different  ages  and  in 
different  places ;  but  the  more  of  such  ways  as  are  opened  between 
Christian  and  Christian,  the  more  truly  that  congregation 
becomes  a  Church  of  Christ.  The  modes  in  which  Christians 
throughout  the  earth  in  their  diverse  communions  manifest  their 
oneness  will  be  varied,  but  their  unity  must  be  felt  by  all  of  them 
in  a  strengthening  sense  of  corporate  solidarity,  and  must  be 
shown  in  effective  common  action.  This  does  not  imply  identity 
in  belief,  uniformity  in  worship,  or  even  similarity  in  organiza- 
tion; but  it  does  mean  a  realized  fellowship,  whose  members  "in 
mutual  well-beseeming  ranks  march  all  one  way."  A  Church 
which  does  not  embody  brotherliness  within  itself  cannot  refashion 
human  society  into  a  brotherhood.  A  Church  which  does  not 
combine  its  own  forces  for  united  effort  cannot  expect  to  lead 
the  nations  into  collective  action  for  the  weal  of  mankind.  The 
fellowship  in  a  village  or  countryside  should  be  embodied  in  a 
community  church ;  and  in  a  metropolitan  area  in  a  city  church, 
as  conscious  of  its  oneness  as  the  village  church  although  grouped 
in  many  congregations.  To  the  degree  that  the  Church's  unity 
in  any  place  or  nation,  or  throughout  the  earth,  is  not  felt  by 
all  its  members  and  is  not  demonstrated  in  common  action,  the 
Church  is  not  a  fellowship,  and  is  not  the  Church  of  Christ.  "By 
this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  My  disciples  if  ye  have  love1 
one  to  another." 

It  must  be  a  priestly  fellowship,  whose  every  member  knows 
and  approaches  God  for  himself,  hears  His  voice  in  his  own  con- 
science, and  feels  commissioned  to  take  his  brethren  into  the 


THE  DAY  AND  THE  CHURCH  31 

holiest  of  all.  Each  serves  at  the  world's  altar  in  home  and  shop 
and  school,  in  theatre  and  polling-booth  and  church,  to  reveal 
God.  The  life  of  Christians  with  each  other  and  with  outsiders 
is  the  sanctuary  and  the  temple-courts  in  which  the  world  is  to 
find  and  be  found  of  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth. 

It  must  know  itself  a  gifted  fellowship.  The  Church's  greatest 
weakness  is  ignorance  of  her  own  powers.  Too  many  of  her 
members  are  living  before  instead  of  after  Pentecost.  They  pray 
for  an  endowment  already  bestowed  and  allowed  "to  fust  unused," 
and  they  need  to  be  told  to  stir  up  the  gift  of  God  which  is  in 
them.  There  are  no  spiritually  unempowered  disciples  of  Jesus ; 
and  when  the  Master  pictured  His  servants  in  the  parable  as 
possessed  of  talents,  not  pennies,  He  suggested  the  vast  wealth 
entrusted  to  the  poorest.  We  are  leaders  of  companies  of  divinely 
endowed  ministers,  and  our  effectiveness  is  measured  not  so  much 
by  the  use  we  make  of  our  own  gifts  as  by  the  extent  to  which 
we  get  theirs  employed. 

Finally,  it  must  be  an  authoritative  fellowship.  As  a  theocracy 
it  must  be  independent  of  any  outside  earthly  domination  that  it 
may  respond  directly  to  its  Lord.  As  a  brotherhood  His  will 
is  not  the  secret  of  some  individual  official  or  caste  of  officials, 
but  the  open  secret  of  all  His  friends,  who  recognize  His  voice, 
and,  without  attempting  to  constrain  each  other's  consciences, 
find  guidance  in  each  other's  intuitions.  And  God  rules  not  alone 
in  it  but  through  it  to  set  up  His  sovereignty  in  the  earth. 

Historically  two  divergent  views  have  prevailed  on  the  scope 
of  the  Church's  authority.  Roman  Catholics  and  Puritans  have 
stood  for  her  declaration  of  God's  will  for  the  State  and  for  the 
whole  of  man's  life;  Lutherans  and  Anglicans,  First  Century 
Churchmen  and  modern  evangelicals,  have  narrowed  the  Church's 
sphere  to  individuals,  and  have  held  up  no  definite  ideals  for 
government  and  industry  and  the  common  life.  The  former  posi- 
tion is  illustrated  by  two  such  different  ecclesiastical  types  as 
Puritan  Massachusetts  and  Jesuit  Quebec  in  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 


32  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

tury.  The  latter,  in  an  extreme  form,  is  stated  by  one  of  Ger- 
many's foremost  teachers  of  political  science,  the  late  Professor 
Bluntschli  of  Heidelberg,  who  stresses  the  masculine  character 
of  the  State  in  contrast  with  the  feminine  character  of  the  Church. 
(The  nouns  are  der  Staat  and  die  Kir  die  in  German.)  ("A  reli- 
gious community,"  he  writes  in  his  Lehre  vom  modernen  Staat, 
"may  have  all  the  other  characteristics  of  a  political  community, 
yet  she  does  not  consciously  rule  herself  like  a  man,  and  act 
freely  in  her  external  life,  but  wishes  only  to  serve  God  and  per- 
form her  religious  duties."  (What  an  unemancipated  Haus- 
frau!)  The  latter  position  has  reduced  her  to  impotency,  with 
tragic  consequences  for  humanity,  while  the  former  made  her 
an  insufferable  tyrant.  Both  positions  misunderstood  the  nature 
of  religious  authority.  The  Church,  like  her  Lord,  possesses  the 
authority  of  experience,  the  friendly  power  of  the  keys  admit- 
ting to  the  household  life  of  God.  She  is  authorized  to  teach  and 
to  inspire,  to  declare  and  to  urge,  not  to  dictate  and  to  enforce; 
and  her  authority  must  extend  over  the  whole  of  human  life.  She 
has  a  message  to  nations  and  to  individuals,  a  commission  to 
conquer  all  the  kingdoms  of  this  world — art,  science,  industry, 
education,  politics — for  God  and  for  His  Christ. 

The  sorest  need  of  a  world  in  pieces  is  fellowship — the  fellow- 
ship of  nations,  of  races,  of  producers  and  distributers  of  the 
world's  wealth.  The  Church  of  Christ,  whose  distinctive  note  is 
fellowship,  is  the  divinely  created  company  for  the  world's  recon- 
struction into  a  universal  fellowship.  Her  programme  for  our 
day  has  been  set  forth  by  an  ancient  prophet:  "They  that  shall 
be  of  thee  shall  build  the  old  waste  places ;  thou  shalt  raise  up 
the  foundations  of  many  generations ;  and  thou  shalt  be  called, 
The  repairer  of  the  breach,  The  restorer  of  paths  to  dwell  in." 


LECTURE  II 
THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION 

"Tnou  shalt  be  called,  The  repairer  of  the  breach" — no  title  is 
more  to  be  desired  for  the  Christian  Church.  And  it  is  the  title 
which  she  ought  to  deserve.  Through  the  bitter  years  of  the 
World  War  many  of  us  have  been  haunted  by  the  sentence :  "God 
gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation." 

The  world  which  it  is  ours  to  reconstruct  is  seamed  by  many 
chasms.  We  think  naturally  first  of  that  which  has  sundered 
warring  nations.  Christendom  ought  to  have  held  together.  The 
numbers  and  influence  of  avowed  followers  of  Jesus  in  the  hostile 
peoples  should  have  rendered  the  war  impossible.  The  Church 
must  frankly  and  shamefully  confess  a  tragic  failure.  She  has 
not  understood,  and  consequently  has  not  taught,  a  fundamental 
truth  of  her  own  Gospel.  She  has  failed  to  realize  that  she  is 
essentially  a  supernational  fellowship.  "There  cannot  be  Greek 
and  Jew,  barbarian,  Scythian:  but  Christ  is  all,  and  in  all."  To 
a  company  possessing  so  inclusive  a  loyalty  is  entrusted  the  duty 
of  preventing  conflicts  and  healing  divisions.  A  Second  Century 
Christian  wrote  to  his  friend,  Diognetus :  "In  a  word,  what  the 
soul  is  in  a  body,  this  the  Christians  are  in  the  world.  The  soul 
is  spread  through  all  the  members  of  the  body,  and  Christians 
through  the  divers  cities  of  the  world.  The  soul  is  enclosed  in  the 
body,  and  yet  itself  holdeth  the  body  together;  so  Christians  are 
kept  in  the  world  as  in  a  prison-house,  and  yet  they  themselves 
hold  the  world  together.  So  great  is  the  office  for  which  God 
hath  appointed  them,  and  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  them  to 
decline." 


34  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

But  the  Church  has  been  declining  it.  It  has  been  lamentable 
that  while  small  groups  of  internationally  minded  Socialists  have 
met,  or  have  tried  to  meet,  during  the  war,  and  have  striven  to 
act  as  peace-makers,  the  Christian  Church  has  felt  herself  power- 
less to  undertake  her  rightful  task.  To  be  sure  her  first  concern 
is  not  peace  but  righteousness,  and  God  forbid  that  the  Church 
of  Christ  should  ever  be  reconciled  to  militaristic  imperialism,  or 
fail  to  encourage  free  people  to  do  their  utmost  to  thwart 

The  brute  and  boist'rous  force  of  violent  men, 
Hardy  and  industrious  to  support 
Tyrannic  power. 

But  it  is  her  office  to  bring  the  nations  to  a  righteous  concord, 
and  for  that  duty  she  is  ill-equipped  today.  The  Protestant 
Reformation,  with  its  many  splendid  gains,  is  chargeable  with 
an  incalculable  loss  when  it  broke  up  the  supernational  organiza- 
tion of  the  Western  Church,  and  encouraged  the  Reformed 
Churches  to  shape  themselves  along  strictly  national  lines. 
Occasionally  a  unifying  faith  transcended  national  barriers,  as 
when,  for  example,  Sir  William  Cecil  in  a  letter  to  John  Knox 
signs  himself:  "Youris  as  ane  Member  of  the  same  Body  in 
Christ";  but  this  sense  of  fellowship  in  the  one  Church  has  been 
rarely  present  in  later  generations.  The  union  of  Church  and 
State  has  further  subordinated  the  Church-consciousness  to  the 
national  consciousness,  and  among  Protestants  patriotism  is 
superior  to  loyalty  to  the  Church.  Roman  Catholicism,  while  it 
has  theoretically  maintained  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  and 
safeguarded  its  international  organization,  and  has  made 
attempts  through  the  pope  to  mediate  between  the  nations,  has 
shown  itself  almost  as  futile.  Roman  Catholic  has  been  arrayed 
against  Roman  Catholic  as  fiercely  as  Protestant  against  Protes- 
tant. It  is  part  of  the  task  of  leaders  in  the  Church  today  to 
recreate  the  sense  of  corporate  solidarity  among  believers  in  Jesus 
as  members  of  His  Body,  with  obligations  to  one  another  and  to 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  35 

the  whole  Body  which  are  prior  to  those  to  fellow-countrymen 
and  to  their  nation,  and  to  urge  the  devising  of  machinery  through 
which  the  Church  can  work  to  hold  together  the  nations. 

The  creation  of  the  sense  of  corporate  solidarity  is  our  first 
duty.  In  1806,  in  the  midst  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  Humphrey 
Davy,  the  British  scientist,  was  awarded  the  prize  of  the  French 
Academy.  In  accepting  it,  he  said:  "Science  knows  no  country. 
If  the  two  countries  or  governments  are  at  war,  the  men  of  science 
are  not.  That  would,  indeed,  be  a  civil  war  of  the  worst  descrip- 
tion. We  should  rather  through  the  instrumentality  of  men  of 
science  soften  the  asperities  of  national  hostility."  Christianity 
recognizes  nationality.  Into  the  city  of  God  of  its  hope  the 
glory  and  the  honor  of  the  nations  are  brought.  It  insists  that 
Christians  must  be  loyal  patriots,  as  it  insists  that  they  be  dutiful 
kinsmen.  But  patriotism  and  love  of  family  only  reach  their 
highest  under  allegiance  to  a  more-inclusive  fellowship.  And  it 
is  intolerable  that  national  hostilities  should  set  brother  against 
brother  in  the  one  household  of  faith — the  Church,  which  exists 
to  embody  and  create  the  world-wide  community  of  God.  "Is 
Christ  divided?"  A  British  and  a  German  Christian  have  more  in 
common  than  either  possesses  with  non-Christian  fellow-country- 
men, since  Christ  means  more  to  each  than  the  whole  of  his  national 
heritage  apart  from  Christ.  A  Japanese  and  an  American  Chris- 
tian share  more  in  the  fellowship  of  their  one  Lord  than  each  owns 
in  the  entire  wealth  of  his  fatherland  with  His  riches  left  out  of 
the  reckoning.  Much  has  been  said  about  hyphenated  citizens; 
but  what  of  hyphenated  churchmen?  We  are  a  holy  nation;  and 
we  cannot  allow  loyalty  to  our  countries  to  lead  us  into  civil  strife 
in  the  Divine  Fellowship. 

Four  centuries  ago  Erasmus  (in  his  comment  on  the  adage 
Dulce  helium  inexpertis)  protested:  "From  whence  cometh  it  into 
our  minds,  that  one  Christian  man  should  draw  his  weapon  to 
bathe  it  in  another  Christian  man's  blood?  It  is  called  parri- 
cide, if  the  one  brother  slay  the  other.  And  yet  is  a  Christian 


36  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

man  nearer  joined  to  another  than  is  one  brother  to  another; 
except  the  bonds  of  nature  be  stronger  than  the  bonds  of  Christ. 
What  abominable  thing,  then,  is  it  to  see  them  fighting  among 
themselves,  the  which  are  the  inhabitants  of  the  one  house — the 
Church,  which  rejoice  and  say,  that  they  all  be  members  of  one 
body,  and  that  have  one  head,  which  truly  is  Christ.  Christ 
saluted  His  disciples  with  the  blessed  luck  of  peace.  Unto  His 
disciples  He  gave  nothing  save  peace;  saving  peace  He  left  them 
nothing." 

The  day  will  come  when  the  nations  shall  be  bound  in  the  all- 
comprehending  Kingdom  of  God;  but  men  of  many  kindreds  are 
already  one  in  the  Church,  and  only  by  conserving  and  asserting 
her  unity  can  the  Church  bring  in  the  Kingdom.  In  our  preach- 
ing and  in  our  worship,  above  all  at  the  Lord's  Table  where  we 
take  the  symbols  of  communion  with  all  who  call  Jesus  Lord,  we 
must  renew  in  believers  the  consciousness  that  "we  being  many 
are  one  bread,  one  body:  for  we  all  partake  of  the  one  bread." 
We  must  make  it  unthinkable  that  Christians  should  permit 
national  antagonisms,  however  bitter,  to  rend  the  Church — a 
house  divided  against  itself.  We  must  make  governments  aware 
that  Christians  cannot  suffer  them  to  demand  in  the  name  of 
patriotism  that  wrhich  nullifies  their  duties  to  one  another  in  the 
Church  of  the  living  God. 

The  subject  of  the  international  organization  of  the  Church 
belongs  to  a  subsequent  lecture;  we  are  dealing  today  with  her 
reconciling  ministry.  We  cannot  overlook  the  immeasumbly 
moral  difference  between  the  contending  groups  of  nations,  nor 
close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  no  Christian  peace  is  possible  with 
the  sinister  and  unprincipled  aggressive  purposes  that  dominate 
Germany,  nor  can  we  expect  a  lasting  peace  while  similar  motives 
rule  any  other  people.  The  present  conflict  must  go  on  until 
she  and  all  the  nations  involved  are  willing  to  learn  righteousness. 
But  we  are  commissioned  even  now  and  always  to  make  nations 
disciples  and  to  teach  them  Christ's  principles.  We  shall  have 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  37 

to  begin  with  the  primary  lesson  of  repentance — sincere  sorrow 
for  the  part  which  all  have  had  in  self-aggrandizing  national 
ambitions  in  a  grasping  commercial  order.  The  scourge  of  war 
has  come  upon  all  the  Great  Powers,  judging  them  one  in  a  guilty 
partnership,  and  binding  the  more  and  the  less  guilty  in  a  com- 
munion of  pain  and  poverty  and  death.  Those  of  finer  moral 
sense  will  acknowledge  the  justice  of  their  condemnation,  and, 
bearing  the  sin  of  others  as  well  as  their  own,  will  lead  them  in 
penitence.  We  shall  then  have  to  teach  forgiveness — such  for- 
giveness as  the  North  showed  the  South,  winning  Swinburne's 
applause,  who  told  England : 

Lo,  how  fair  from  afar, 
Taintless  of  tyranny,  stands 
Thy  mighty  daughter,  for  years 
Who  trod  the  winepress  of  war; 
Shines  with  immaculate  hands ; 
Slays  not  a  foe,  neither  fears ; 
Stains  not  peace  with  a  scar; 

and  such  forgiveness  as  our  country  showed  China  when  it  re- 
stored the  Boxer  indemnity  and  "gained  a  brother."  We  must 
constantly  point  out  how  all  Christian  duties  apply  to  nations, 
and  show  what  it  means  for  a  land,  in  its  diplomacy,  its  tariff 
and  trade  regulations,  its  dealings  with  weaker  and  backward 
peoples,  to  love  its  neighbors  as  itself.  Every  minister  must  keep 
before  himself  nothing  less  than  a  world,  and  through  the  ministry 
of  his  small  segment  of  the  Church  build  citizens  whose  patriotism 
makes  their  nation  one  with  the  peoples  of  the  earth  "in  a  general 
honest  thought  and  common  good  to  all." 

The  breaches  between  nations  are  often  instances  of  the  divi- 
sions between  groups  within  each  nation — divisions  due  to  com- 
petitive industrialism.  It  is  notorious  that  the  Church  is  failing 
to  prevent  class  wars.  Who  fancies  that  a  strike  or  a  lockout 
is  impossible  where  there  are  Christians  among  employers  and 


38  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

employed?  Who  stops  to  consider  the  Christian  discipleship  of 
those  involved  as  a  factor  in  the  situation?  It  may  be  said  that 
clashes  are  inevitable  and  even  desirable  in  a  system  that  is 
inherently  faulty;  but  clashes  are  not  the  method  of  advance 
Christ  commended,  and  Christians  are  responsible  for  the  intro- 
duction of  a  kindlier  method  of  change.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
relations  of  capitalists  and  workers  in  modern  industry  are 
largely  impersonal — the  relations  of  the  company  and  the  union; 
but  such  relations  do  not  discharge  the  Church  from  the  duty 
of  preventing  or  of  ending  strife.  So  long  as  there  are  Christians 
in  the  group,  the  Church  can,  if  she  will,  influence  group-attitudes. 
Augustine,  after  a  riot  had  terminated  in  the  killing  of  an  un- 
popular official,  brought  home  Christian  responsibility  for  public 
opinion  in  a  sermon,  in  which  he  said :  "Persuade  such  as  you  can 
persuade,  and  in  the  case  of  those  over  whom  you  have  authority, 
exercise  constraint.  I  am  well  aware,  and  you  are  well  aware, 
that  there  is  in  this  place  not  a  single  household  in  which  there 
are  not  some  Christians;  there  are  many  in  which  there  is  not  a 
single  pagan.  Nay,  on  careful  examination  you  will  find  no  house- 
hold in  which  there  is  not  a  majority  of  Christians.  That  is  true; 
I  see  you  assent  to  it.  You  see,  then,  that  the  bad  deeds  cannot 
be  done  if  the  Christians  will  not  permit  them.  There  is  no  deny- 
ing that." 

As  leaders  in  the  Christian  Church  we  have  several  plain  duties 
in  regard  to  this  industrial  conflict.  One  is  to  sympathize  with 
current  discontent  with  present  economic  arrangements.  We  can- 
not preach  acquiescence  in  things  as  they  are.  How  can  we 
when  so  generally 

here's  naught  to  see, 
But  just  the  rich  man  and  just  Lazarus, 
And  both  in  torments ;  with  a  mediate  gulph, 
Though  not  a  hint  of  Abraham's  bosom? 

So    long    as    industrial    relations    are    unbrotherly,    the    Church 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  39 

belongs  in  the  party  of  protest.  We  must  keep  our  own  minds, 
and  keep  our  people's  minds,  open  to  welcome  changes,  however 
radical,  that  look  towards  ampler  justice  and  fuller  economic 
fellowship.  In  the  days  immediately  following  the  war,  with  so 
much  poverty  to  be  faced  and  such  wastes  to  be  repaired,  we 
must  stand  for  the  homely  maxim,  "No  cake  for  anyone  till  all 
have  bread." 

A  second  duty  is  to  apply  the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  existing 
arrangements  and  point  out  their  shortcomings,  and  to  hold  up 
the  ideal  which  that  Spirit  demands  in  men's  dealings  with  each 
others  as  producers  and  distributers  and  users  of  the  world's 
wealth.  This  must  be  done  from  the  pulpit,  in  Bible  classes,  in 
our  training  of  young  communicants,  and  in  the  Sunday  School. 
The  good  seed  are  the  children  of  the  Kingdom ;  and  it  is  ours  to 
develop  men  and  women  who  know  what  is  wrong  with  economic 
adjustments,  and  who  have  caught  the  vision  of  what  should  be. 

A  third  is  to  inspire  them  with  the  faith  that  industry  and 
commerce,  conducted  in  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  will  succeed.  We 
need  to  insist  that  godliness  is  profitable,  that  nothing  less  brings 
maximum  returns  in  a  world  over  which  God  is  Lord.  Economic 
conflicts  are  appallingly  wasteful,  in  enforced  idleness  of  men  and 
machinery,  in  underselling,  dumping,  manipulating  markets,  and 
destroying  surplus  products,  above  all  in  the  mental  and  moral 
wear  and  tear  of  the  contestants.  We  offer  the  hope  of  economic 
harmony  in  Him  "in  whom  all  things  hold  together."  If  it  be 
said,  as  it  is  widely  said,  that  the  Spirit  of  Christ  cannot  be 
embodied  in  a  successful  business  enterprise,  then  let  us  either 
frankly  renounce  allegiance  to  Him  as  a  fantastic  dreamer,  or 
let  the  business  go  to  its  seeming  failure  in  loyalty  to  Him,  and 
see  whether  that  apparent  failure  be  not,  like  another  outside 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  a  most  amazing  success.  At  all  events 
we  must  remind  Christians  that  success  is  not  to  be  measured 
primarily  in  terms  of  profits  or  of  wages,  although  these  have 
their  just  claims  on  "wise  stewards,"  but  in  terms  of  the  brother- 


40  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

hood  of  the  workers  in  the  enterprise  with  one  another  and  with 
the  public  which  they  serve. 

For  the  Christian  Church  the  most  serious  problem  in  con- 
nexion with  this  industrial  chasm  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  divides 
her  own  fellowship.  In  pitifully  few  congregations  do  rich  and 
poor,  employers  and  employees,  capitalists  and  workers,  meet 
together  before  the  Lord,  the  Maker  of  them  all.  At  Point  Lobos, 
on  the  coast  of  California,  there  is  a  long  line  of  cypress  trees  on 
the  tops  of  the  cliffs  close  to  the  sea ;  then,  separated  from  them 
by  a  space  never  less  than  a  hundred  yards,  the  pines  begin.  So 
far  as  one's  eye  can  reach  up  and  down  the  coast  there  does  not 
appear  a  single  spot  where  the  two  species  of  trees  mingle.  It 
is  a  picture  of  the  aloofness  of  social  sets  in  our  nominally  demo- 
cratic America!  Educated  more  and  more  generally  in  different 
schools,  brought  up  in  separate  castes,  moving  in  closed  circles 
almost  all  their  days,  it  is  seldom  that  they  work  and  worship 
side  by  side  in  the  same  Protestant  congregation.  Indeed  the 
divisions  between  the  Protestant  communions  in  any  community 
are  not  due  so  much  to  differences  in  belief,  or  in  theories  of 
church  government,  or  in  forms  of  worship,  as  they  are  to  differ- 
ences in  social  status.  Study  the  economic  rise  or  fall  of  a  family 
during  several  generations  and  note  its  church  affiliations.  A 
group  of  well-to-do  city  dwellers  spending  their  summers  in  a 
country  neighborhood  will  erect  a  church  of  their  own  rather 
than  join  with  the  farmers  and  townsfolk  of  the  neighborhood, 
not  because  they  hold  divergent  religious  convictions,  but  because 
the  two  groups  do  not  find  themselves  at  ease  with  each  other. 
A  wealthy  city  congregation  will  provide  "a  mission  church"  a 
few  blocks  away  for  poorer  people,  not  that  distance  makes  the 
second  building  necessary,  for  many  of  the  attendants  at  both 
churches  live  farther  from  their  respective  church  homes  than 
the  buildings  are  from  each  other,  but  that  the  two  classes  do  not 
know  how  to  meet  even  in  the  presence  of  God.  When  foreigners 
move  into  a  community  a  church  seldom  thinks  of  adapting  itself 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  41 

to  fill  their  religious  wants,  but  deplores  the  loss  of  its  constitu- 
ency, and  is  content  to  leave  the  aliens  to  be  served  by  some  other 
religious  agency,  or  to  go  unchurched.  A  socially  stratified 
Protestantism,  organized  in  cliquish  congregations,  cannot  exer- 
cise a  ministry  of  conciliation.  So  far  from  repairing,  it  widens 
the  breach. 

The  Church  that  wishes  to  preach  brotherhood  to  the  nations 
and  embody  it  in  the  social  order  must  first  exemplify  it  in  her 
own  fellowship.  Her  congregations  must  be  such  families  as  she 
wishes  the  race  to  become.  A  family  binds  together  very  diverse 
and  often  uncongenial  persons  in  a  common  life.  In  building  up 
a  socially  inclusive  congregation  we  must  recognize  the  reality  of 
social  differences  due  to  wealth,  education,  nationality  or  race. 
We  are  not  attempting  to  force  social  identity,  but  to  produce 
religious  solidarity.  We  are  not  trying  to  obliterate  the  natural 
groupings  into  which  any  company  of  human  beings  always  falls, 
but  to  comprehend  these  groups  in  a  higher  unity  in  God.  It  is 
a  mistake  for  a  church  to  begin  to  bring  people  together  in  a 
congregational  "social,"  or  to  start  by  combining  them  in  guilds 
or  societies  where  social  intercourse  is  the  prominent  feature  of 
the  organization's  life.  This  will  render  those  who  meet  more 
painfully  aware  of  their  mutual  remoteness.  They  should  be 
joined  first  in  common  worship  and  common  effort  for  the  King- 
dom. Capitalist  and  wage-earner  can  meet  at  the  Table  of  the 
Lord  and  be  unconscious  of  any  barrier  between  them:  their 
common  need  and  their  common  satisfaction  in  the  Bread  of 
heaven  makes  them  one.  City  man  and  farmer  can  work  side 
by  side  in  a  missionary  campaign  or  an  evangelistic  movement 
or  a  crusade  against  some  social  iniquity.  Common  interests  will 
form,  which  give  those  who  have  worshipped  and  worked  together 
something  to  talk  about  that  renders  easy  subsequent  social 
fellowship. 

A  socially  comprehensive  congregation  must  both  allow  natural 
group  affiliations  and  provide  for  the  mingling  of  the  groups. 


42  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Its  plan  of  religious  education  should  mass  all  its  boys  and  girls 
in  the  one  school,  while  arranging  the  classes  to  bring  together 
children  facing  similar  circumstances  and  with  similar  mental 
capacities.  Working  girls  and  girls  who  have  no  distinctive  call- 
ing can  be  encouraged  to  form  clubs  and  guilds  of  their  own  for 
specific  purposes,  and  girls  of  both  sorts  ought  to  be  put  side 
by  side  in  the  teacher-training  class  and  developed  as  comrades 
in  a  kindred  service.  It  must  provide  societies  for  persons  whose 
leisure  makes  it  possible  or  convenient  for  them  to  meet  at  cer- 
tain hours — night-workers,  nurses,  Sunday-toilers,  business-men, 
women  who  find  it  easiest  to  plan  and  pray  for  missions  in  the 
forenoon  and  women  who  prefer  to  sew  together  and  drink  coffee 
in  the  afternoon;  and  it  must  do  its  utmost  to  bring  all  these 
groups  together  in  its  worship.  Young  people  from  homes  of 
all  social  grades  should  be  prepared  for  church  membership  in 
the  same  training  class,  and  made  to  face  the  various  personal 
problems  which  confront  fellow-Christians.  Richer  and  poorer 
members  must  be  brought  into  the  one  fellowship  of  giving,  and 
made  to  share  responsibility  for  the  church's  support  and  aggres- 
sive missionary  propaganda.  Leaders  from  all  the  social  groups 
represented  in  the  church's  fellowship  must  meet  often  enough  to 
understand  each  other  thoroughly  and  plan  together  the  methods 
by  which  the  church  attempts  to  serve  every  element  in  its  neigh- 
borhood. The  congregation  must  have  a  warmth  in  its  life: 
people,  like  metals,  fuse  only  at  high  temperature. 

The  minister  who  would  make  his  congregation  inclusive  must 
proclaim  the  Christian  message  as  demanding  fellowship  for  the 
Kingdom's  sake.  He  must  carefully  place  himself  at  the  disposal 
equally  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  among  his  people.  He  must 
make  them  feel  by  his  own  attitude  and  by  constant  teaching  that 
unity  in  Christ  transcends  class  distinction:  "there  cannot  be 
bondman  and  freeman" ;  and  that  snobbishness  and  offishness  are 
heinous  sins,  sins  against  the  Holy  Spirit  of  love.  The  less  said 
publicly  about  social  differences  within  the  congregation  the  bet- 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  43 

ter:  no  one  should  be  made  class-conscious.  He  must  scrutinize 
the  church's  appeal  to  detect  the  elements  in  the  community  it 
fails  to  attract.  He  must  attempt  to  have  its  office-bearers  repre- 
sentative, if  that  may  be,  of  all  the  groups  that  make  up  the 
congregation.  He  must  try  to  put  men  and  women  of  larger 
capacities  and  outlooks  in  the  midst  of  groups  that  lack  advan- 
tages of  education  and  culture  to  supply  them  with  necessary 
stimulus.  He  must  seek  to  give  his  more  privileged  people  per- 
sonal touch  with  the  cramped  in  resources  that  they  may  feel 
at  firsthand  the  burdens  of  poverty  and  the  limitations  of  con- 
fining toil.  He  must  train  a  set  of  leaders  who  understand  and 
heartily  believe  in  his  aim,  and  are  themselves  socialized,  which 
is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  they  are  Christian  men  and 
women.  By  his  own  inclusive  friendliness  he  must  build  these  else 
unrelated  lives  into  a  firm  comradeship  of  aspiration  and  of  serv- 
ice. Above  all  he  must  keep  his  church  a  religious  fellowship — 
a  company  who  seek  God,  who  meet  each  other  in  God,  and  who 
work  together  with  God. 

Another  breach  that  yawns  wide  in  many  communities — a 
breach  that  inevitably  opens  in  every  generation — is  due  to  the 
divergence  in  the  thought  of  the  age  from  the  forms  in  which  the 
historic  Church  states  her  faith.  There  are  many  serious  and 
earnest  men  and  women  in  a  very  uncomfortable  position,  stand- 
ing with  their  hearts  inside  and  their  heads  outside  the  doors 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Doubtless  there  are  Christian  and 
unchristian  ways  of  thinking — witness  current  conceptions  of 
patriotism,  of  property  rights,  of  liberty  of  conscience,  of  the 
living  God — and  no  loyal  follower  of  Jesus  wishes  the  Church 
door  made  so  large  that  unchristian  heads  can  enter.  But  unfor- 
tunately the  present  shape  of  our  doors  often  keeps  out  the 
idealist  whose  thought  is  most  in  accord  with  the  mind  of  Christ, 
but  who  cannot  phrase  it  in  the  conventional  terms  of  the  devout, 
while  it  admits  those  who  like  this  phraseology  but  have  con- 
sciences palpably  at  variance  with  that  of  Christ  on  most  of  the 


44  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

social  questions  of  the  hour.  The  Church  needs  a  moral  narrow- 
ing and  an  intellectual  broadening.  Men  seldom  come  head-first 
to  Christ;  they  come  heart-first;  and  where  the  heart  has  arrived 
there  must  surely  be  some  way  of  stating  the  Christian  position 
which  renders  it  credible  and  cogent  to  sincere  lovers  of  Jesus. 
Those  who  attempt  the  restatement  of  Christian  convictions  are 
usually  misrepresented  by  some  of  their  brethren  within  the 
Church  as  destroyers  of  the  faith.  In  reality  they  are  the  truest 
conservatives — conserving  not  doctrines  primarily,  but  men  and 
women  who  but  for  them  would  be  lost  to  the  organized  Christian 
fellowship ;  and  really  conserving  doctrines  as  well,  for  a  doctrine 
is  maintained,  not  when  it  is  simply  repeated  in  the  identic  lan- 
guage in  which  it  has  always  been  phrased,  but  when  it  is  kept, 
in  whatever  words  old  or  new,  a  vital  factor  in  the  consciences  of 
living  Christians. 

Repairers  of  this  breach  must  make  sure  that  they  belong  on 
both  sides  of  it — that  they  are  at  home  in  the  historic  faith  of  the 
Church,  and  at  home  in  the  thought  of  the  day.  We  cannot  per- 
mit ourselves  even  to  think,  much  less  to  speak,  slightingly  of 
any  formulation  of  truth  that  has  ever  been  any  sincere  Chris- 
tian's living  conviction.  We  must  accustom  ourselves  to  appre- 
ciate the  religious  experience  of  Bible  writers  and  Church  fathers 
and  Reformation  divines  and  more  recent  evangelicals,  while  we 
boldly  discard  their  terms  and  employ  others  more  congenial 
to  the  mind  of  our  time.  No  man  is  a  worthy  minister  of  the 
Church  who  does  not  realize  the  continuity  of  her  corporate  life 
with  God  in  Christ  through  the  centuries,  and  prize  the  inherit- 
ance which  it  is  his  to  conserve,  to  make  available  as  the  chief 
constructive  factor  in  the  life  of  his  generation,  and  to  pass  on 
as  its  most  enriching  bequest  to  the  ages  to  come.  We  stand  in  a 
glorious  succession  of  apostles  and  prophets,  and  of  men  and 
women  who  through  faith  subdued  kingdoms  and  wrought  right- 
eousness; our  position  of  leadership  in  the  historic  Church 
renders  us  representative  recipients  of  a  priceless  trust ;  we  dare 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  45 

not  be  careless  stewards  of  the  Church's  patrimony.  How  can 
we  better  fit  the  Church  for  her  ministry  of  social  rebuilding 
than  by  keeping  alive  in  our  contemporaries  all  the  spiritual 
vitality  of  their  forefathers  in  God?  On  the  other  hand  we  must 
be  frank  and  fair  in  facing  the  problems  of  thoughtful  people. 
It  is  fatal  for  any  cause  when  men  feel  that  its  advocates  are  too 
prejudiced  to  be  just  to  living  issues.  Ministers  who  dodge  the 
difficulties  their  listeners  confront  cannot  command  their  respect. 
We  must  keep  posted  as  to  the  gains%  of  scholars  and  thinkers. 
That  is  a  principal  reason  for  our  support  by  our  congregations 
in  sufficient  leisure  to  study.  We  must  be  systematic  in  our  read- 
ing, and  open-minded  and  painstaking  in  our  revision  of  our 
methods  of  presenting  the  Christian  message.  We  have  an  apt 
illustration  of  our  task  in  the  work  of  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  who  took  the  Jesus  of  the  Palestinian  tradition  and  set 
Him  in  the  midst  of  the  Mediterranean  world  in  an  interpretation 
that  conserved  the  faith  of  the  first  disciples  and  made  it  intelli- 
gible and  persuasive  to  an  age  which  was  thinking  in  terms 
altogether  different  from  those  of  Galileans  in  Jesus'  own  day. 
The  building  of  a  new  world-order  is  so  titanic  an  undertaking 
that  the  Church  must  have  within  her  ranks  all  men  of  Christian 
purpose.  Upon  her  leaders  rests  the  duty  of  so  stating  her  con- 
victions that  no  man  of  Christian  goodwill  will  feel  that  he  can- 
not be  heartily  loyal  to  truth  and  in  fullest  sympathy  with  the 
Church,  and  that  no  believer  of  maturest  experience  will  complain 
that  our  restatements  omit  aught  of  the  wealth  of  the  life  with 
Christ  in  God  of  the  Church's  heritage. 

The  same  fissure  emerges  at  the  moment  within  every  com- 
munion of  the  Church  itself,  dividing  men  into  parties,  classified 
roughly  as  modernist  and  traditionalist,  liberal  and  conservative. 
At  times  it  seems  questionable  whether  some  of  our  communions 
can  continue  to  hold  together;  but  none  can  afford  to  part  with 
any  group  within  it  who  are  sincerely  doing  the  work  of  Christ. 
It  is  absurd  to  plead  for  Church  unity,  and  then  attempt  to  foster 


46  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

further  disruption  within  one's  own  communion.  We  must  not 
subdivide  existing  dominations,  multiplying  waste  and  increas- 
ing their  futility,  but  must  combine  them  with  as  scanty  secessions 
as  possible  into  larger  federated  units.  But  it  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  be  factors  in  progress  and  not  cause  divisive  strife  in 
our  own  communions.  Educational  facilities  and  mental  types 
vary  in  a  huge  country  like  ours.  Doctrinal  positions  that  are 
accounted  conservative  in  New  England,  are  moderate  in  New 
York,  liberal  in  Philadelphia,  radical  in  Pittsburgh,  and  rank 
infidelity  in  many  places  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  A 
social  outlook  that  is  traditional  in  Kansas,  is  conventional  in 
Chicago,  progressive  in  Rochester,  and  anarchistic  in  the  financial 
centres  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Heresy  and  orthodoxy  in 
theology  and  social  theory  are  matters  of  latitude  and  longitude 
in  the  United  States  of  America;  and  most  towns  of  any  size 
are  likely  to  contain  dwellers  on  a  number  of  parallels  and 
meridians.  Men  entering  the  ministry  must  be  sensible  that  under 
the  circumstances  good  people  within  their  communion  are  often 
very  trying  to  one  another.  There  is  a  type  of  radical  who 
glories  in  the  dissidence  of  his  dissent,  who  speaks  contemptuously 
of  ancient  formulations  of  truth  which  his  religious  experience  is 
perhaps  too  shallow  or  too  restricted  to  appreciate,  who  forever 
airs  his  negations.  There  is  a  type  of  reactionary  who  has  the 
unhappy  faculty  of  fastening  on  some  unessential  details  of  the 
historic  creed  and  exalting  them  as  decisive  tests  of  fitness  for 
leadership  in  the  Church,  who  appears  to  lose  sight  of  the  great 
body  of  truth  in  which  his  brethren  accord  with  him  while  he 
rivets  attention  on  the  one  or  two  points  over  which  he  can 
wrangle  with  them,  who  seems  to  forget  a  world's  need  while  he 
disquiets  the  Church  with  attacks  that  leave  lasting  suspicions. 
There  is  a  species  of  over-developed  individualist  whose  uncom- 
fortable conscience  compels  him  to  bring  to  the  fore  and  to  harp 
on  such  of  his  views  as  he  knows  are  most  unpalatable  to  the 
majority  of  his  brethren — a  man  who  puts  a  heavy  strain  on 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  47 

temper  and  tolerance,  and  forces  the  Church  to  stretch  to  the 
limit  the  liberty  which  it  accords  to  prophesying.  There  is  a 
species  of  dogmatist,  be  he  one  who  leans  backward  or  one  who 
leans  forward,  who  cannot  respect  his  brethren's  differences  of 
opinion  and  leave  them  alone,  but  must  constantly  press  upon 
them  his  particular  interpretation  of  truth — a  man  with  no  con- 
ception of  what  is  involved  in  the  liberty  of  prophesying.  And 
all  these  extreme  types,  as  well  as  the  great  mass  of  more  moderate 
men  in  between  them,  must  be  retained.  Part  of  our  ministry  of 
reconciliation  is  to  repair  the  breaches  within  our  own  communion. 
We  must  broaden  our  sympathies  until  we  understand  the  nega- 
tions of  radicals  and  the  undue  emphases  of  finicky  literalists. 
We  have  to  learn  to  tolerate  those  who  do  not  wish  to  tolerate  us. 
We  must  judge  men,  in  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  form 
estimates  of  them  (and  judging  is  always  a  hazardous  under- 
taking for  a  Christian),  not  by  their  views  but  by  their  purposes, 
and  try  always  to  look  at  them  with  the  believing  eyes  of  love. 
Happily  the  grounds  of  controversy  are  shifting  from  the  rela- 
tively petty  matters  brought  to  the  front  by  the  historical  investi- 
gations of  the  Biblical  narratives — the  accuracy  of  the  account 
of  some  miraculous  happening,  the  mode  of  Jesus'  birth  or  the 
manner  of  His  resurrection — to  much  more  important  matters 
affecting  faith  in  the  Christian  conception  of  God  and  our  under- 
standing of  His  will.  The  new  alignments  will  not  be  based  so 
exclusively  on  information  or  its  absence  as  were  those  of  the 
past  five  and  twenty  years.  No  doubt  ignorance  will  always  be 
dangerous;  but  the  breaches  will  not  be  so  often  between  the 
mentally  dull  and  the  mentally  acute,  as  between  the  morally 
darkened  and  the  morally  enlightened.  The  Church  can  well 
afford  to  part  with  those  who  do  not  sincerely  wish  to  see  the 
structure  of  society  dominated  by  love;  she  cannot  afford  to  lose 
genuine  children  of  the  Kingdom  whose  differences  consist  in  vary- 
ing interpretations  of  Biblical  narratives  or  of  doctrines,  or  in 
matters  of  taste  and  temperament.  For  their  sakes,  it  is  part  of 


48  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  ministry  entrusted  to  us  so  to  present  our  message  and  so  to 
discharge  our  ecclesiastical  duties  that  we  maintain  hearty  fra- 
ternal relations  with  all  shades  of  opinion  among  followers  of 
Christ,  and  do  our  utmost  to  hold  our  own  communion  together 
as  a  united  force  in  rebuilding  our  world  for  a  habitation  of  God 
in  the  Spirit. 

And  every  minister  discovers  similar  rifts  within  his  own  con- 
gregation. He  will  naturally  expect  differences  in  opinion  due  to 
differences  in  age  or  in  culture,  but  these  are  accentuated  by 
the  truly  revolutionary  changes  in  thought  which  have  taken  place 
in  the  last  fifty  years,  and  which  have  been  very  unequally 
assimilated  by  the  people  who  compose  our  churches.  A  Chris- 
tian preacher  today  deals  with  at  least  three  world-views : — first, 
the  nai've  world-view  of  the  Biblical  writers,  with  its  flat  earth 
and  local  heaven  and  God  operating  directly  and  somewhat 
irregularly  on  men  and  things;  second,  this  Biblical  view  com- 
bined with  the  popular  scientific  and  philosophical  outlooks  of  a 
generation  or  more  ago,  which  is  the  conventional  or  orthodox 
world-view  in  most  Protestant  communions ;  and  third,  the  world- 
view  taught  in  our  universities  and  high  schools.  All  three  views 
may  be  represented  in  the  minds  of  a  congregation;  and  various 
adaptations  of  all  three  are  certain  to  be  there.  We  are  not 
much  concerned  with  the  world-views  held  by  our  people,  although 
as  educated  men  and  devotees  of  truth  we  are  eager  to  have  them 
as  well  informed  as  possible.  We  realize  that  the  conceptions 
of  the  universe  in  present-day  science  and  philosophy  are  only 
temporary  abodes  of  the  human  mind.  We  are  concerned  that 
whatever  a  man's  view  of  the  universe  he  shall  be  aware  of  God's 
presence  in  every  nook  and  cranny  of  it,  and  live  in  it  in  unbroken 
fellowship  with  Him.  We  cannot  take  time  to  give  a  man  a  new 
world-view  before  we  attempt  to  give  him  personal  friendship 
with  the  living  God,  and  set  him  to  building  His  Kingdom.  We 
recall  that  Jesus  had  a  complete  and  perfect  life  with  the  Father, 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  49 

and  yet  pictured  it  against  the  background  of  the  notions  of  the 
universe  current  in  First  Century  Palestine. 

Consequently  a  preacher  facing  his  congregation  will  sometimes 
feel  himself  like  a  juggler  with  three,  or  even  with  half  a  dozen, 
balls  in  the  air  at  once.  He  is  taking  men's  minds  as  he  finds 
them  and  seeking  to  toss  them  Godwards.  He  must  not  allow 
any  of  them  to  fall  with  a  bump;  for  thuds  of  that  sort  banish 
all  other  and  higher  thought.  He  is  not  handling  men  to  supply 
them  with  conceptions  of  the  universe  but  with  a  vital  touch  with 
God.  We  must  learn  to  preach  so  that  God  and  the  life  men 
may  have  in  Him  shall  be  so  outstanding  that  any  references  to 
philosophic  and  scientific  opinions  will  seem  insignificantly  sec- 
ondary. Men  both  more  and  less  enlightened  than  we  in  current 
thinking  will  through  us  be  faced  with  the  Most  High  and  inspired 
with  Him  to  build  a  righteous  community. 

To  be  sure  we  do  not  wish  to  risk  having  our  young  people 
extend  their  thought  of  the  universe  with  stretches  of  space  or 
in  modes  of  motion  in  which  the  Gbd  of  their  religious  training 
appears  to  have  no  part.  In  teaching  them  we  must  assume  the 
results  of  the  best  present-day  education.  Nor  dare  we  fail  to 
try  to  refill  with  God  the  imperfectly  adjusted  minds  of  men  and 
women  to  whom  has  come  a  new  world-view  from  which  He  appears 
to  be  debarred.  We  must  be  frank  with  them,  stating  as  clearly 
as  we  can  the  Christian  convictions  in  relation  to  the  most  recent 
modes  of  scientific  thought.  We  owe  them  honest  intellectual 
guidance.  But  we  shall  always  have  a  number  of  older  and  some 
younger  people  whose  conceptions  of  the  universe  are  not  those 
of  the  current  philosophy,  and  our  duty  to  them  is  to  lead  them 
along  their  own  mental  pathways  to  God.  And  if  a  new  pathway 
must  be  taken,  let  it  connect  as  naturally  as  possible  with  the 
well-worn  route.  His  biographer  says  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
fascinating  teacher  at  whose  feet  I  ever  sat,  Professor  A.  B. 
Davidson :  "He  had  unparalleled  skill  in  communicating  new 
truths,  some  of  them  revolutionary,  with  a  minimum  of  friction." 


50  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

We  must  build  a  congregation  with  a  religious  solidarity  despite 
inevitable  clefts  in  opinion.  If  a  minister  rouses  antagonism 
either  by  his  modernism  or  by  his  traditionalism,  it  is  because 
he  is  underemphasizing  God  in  Christ  and  men's  life  with  Him. 
Doubtless,  too,  no  man  is  fit  for  the  ministry  who  lacks  a  certain 
deftness  in  handling  a  group  of  human  beings  akin  to  the  skill 
of  the  ball-tosser  in  our  illustration. 

There  is  still  another  breach  in  many  places  between  a  grow- 
ing group  of  socially  minded  men  and  women,  engaged  in  various 
enterprises  for  the  betterment  of  the  community,  and  the  mass 
of  the  membership  of  the  churches.  The  former  are  keenly  inter- 
ested in  human  welfare,  but  apparently  indifferent  to  religion ; 
the  latter  are  devout,  but  often  apathetic  to  matters  of  social 
advance.  The  two  groups  sometimes  disparage  each  other,  the 
latter  complaining  that  the  human  are  so  ungodly,  and  the  former 
that  the  godly  are  so  inhuman.  Our  social  enthusiasts  seem  not 
to  realize  what  an  infinite  difference  it  makes  to  those  who  are 
striving  to  improve  our  world  whether  it  be  "ampler  day  divinelier 
lit  or  homeless  night  without";  our  soul-savers  not  to  be  aware 
that  unfavorable  economic  conditions,  grinding  poverty,  occa- 
sional and  uncertain  employment,  a  precarious  family  life,  a 
seven-day  week,  on  the  one  hand,  and  enervating  luxury,  irre- 
sponsible leisure,  wasteful  plenty,  on  the  other,  make  life  with 
the  Christian  God  practically  impossible.  The  minister  must 
convince  the  former  that  he  is  as  concerned  as  they  for  the 
redemption  of  social  conditions,  that  he  will  go  as  far  and  farther 
in  sacrificial  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  men,  and  that  in  addition 
he  possesses  inspirations,  hopes,  regenerative  resources  they  know 
not  of.  He  must  convince  the  latter  that  a  Gospel  which  expects 
to  alter  the  world  really  means  vast  changes  (and  it  is  amazing 
how  many  good  people  expect  the  world  to  be  redeemed  without 
being  changed),  that  they  must  be  prepared  to  welcome  and 
assist  social  and  economic  upheavals,  and  that  they  cannot  have 
intimate  fellowship  with  One  who  from  His  throne  declares, 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  RECONCILIATION  51 

"Behold,  I  make  all  things  new,"  unless  they,  too,  are  renovating 
an  outworn  world-order  with  the  newness  of  Chris't's  love.  These 
two  groups  are  natural  allies.  According  to  the  genealogy  in 
Matthew,  both  Ruth,  the  devoted,  to  whom  God  was  merely  inci- 
dental to  her  obligation  to  her  mother-in-law,  and  Rahab,  the 
believing,  to  whom  civic  and  social  ties  were  nothing,  for  she  was 
both  traitress  and  harlot,  but  who  had  a  discerning  eye  for  Him 
who  is  invisible,  are  among  the  ancestresses  of  Christ.  For  the 
task  of  social  reconstruction  the  leaders  of  the  Christian  Church 
must  combine  within  its  fellowship  under  the  mastery  of  Jesus 
the  devotees  of  man  and  the  lovers  of  God.  Each  group  needs 
the  other;  and  both  can  meet  in  Christ,  and  should  be  side  by 
side  in  His  Church. 

And  our  ministry  of  reconciliation  is  not  only  the  adjustment 
of  man  to  man,  but  the  inward  adjustment  of  each  man  to  him- 
self. The  abbot  in  Byron's  poem  says  of  Manfred: 

This  should  have  been  a  noble  creature:  he 

Hath  all  the  energy  which  should  have  made 

A  goodly  frame  of  glorious  elements, 

Had  they  been  wisely  mingled;  as  it  is, 

It  is  an  awful  chaos — light  and  darkness, 

And  mind  and  dust,  and  passions  and  pure  thoughts, 

Mixed  and  contending  without  end  or  order — 

All  dormant  or  destructive. 

That  describes  the  confusion  in  every  life  until  the  Spirit  of  God 
controls  it.  We  have  to  think  of  those  to  whom  we  minister,  as 
indeed  we  have  discovered  ourselves,  at  war  within — aspiration 
tugging  against  inclination,  an  idealist  wrestling  with  a  sensualist, 
a  cynic  scoffing  at  an  enthusiast,  a  believer  struggling  with  a 
skeptic,  a  blase  man  of  the  world  tied  hand  and  foot  to  an  eager, 
interested,  optimistic  small  boy,  a  gentleman  attempting  to  down 
a  barbarian,  a  man  of  God  at  grips  with  a  man  of  sin.  Tenny- 
son sang  of  the  battle  of  the  spirit  with  the  brute,  the  man  with 


52  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  tiger  and  the  ape;  and  an  Anglican  bishop  has  reminded 
us  of  another  animal  ingredient,  the  donkey,  still  more  difficult 
to  dispose  of.  There  is  a  whole  Noah's  ark  of  beastly  qualities 
in  every  soul — pig,  sheep,  rooster,  fox,  mule,  wolf,  cat,  snake — 
and  the  list  is  only  begun.  Tennyson  would  have  the  ape  and 
tiger  die;  but  a  greater  poet  foretold  a  Messiah  in  whose  reign 
wolf  and  lion,  leopard  and  bear,  should  feed  and  lie  down  with 
lamb  and  kid  and  calf.  Who  would  wish  the  survival  of  the 
bovine  elements  only?  Who  wants  a  society  of  fatlings?  Is  there 
not  as  much  sanctification  required  by  the  sheep  as  by  the  wolf 
to  attain  the  morally  heroic  spirit  of  the  Lamb  of  God?  Not 
elimination  but  reconciliation,  a  redemption  that  conserves  a 
whole  man,  is  the  Messianic  ideal.  The  production  of  such  rebuilt 
men  and  women  to  rebuild  the  social  order  is  the  primary  task  of 
ministers  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  It  is  Christ's  unique  glory 
that  He  can  make  fractional  persons  units,  fragments  wholes. 

His  truest  interpreter  saw  in  His  cross  the  breaking  down  of 
walls  of  partition.  Paul  was  thinking  of  barriers  as  serious  as 
any  we  have  mentioned — walls  sundering  race  from  race,  and 
barriers  running  (as  he  knew  from  his  painful  experience) 
through  his  own  soul,  setting  him  at  odds  with  himself.  But  in 
the  Life  that  culminated  at  Calvary  something  was  done  that 
took  the  foundations  from  under  these  walls,  and  ever  since  they 
have  been  waiting  to  topple  before  whoso  knows  their  baseless 
plight — whoso  knows  that  underneath  the  solid  ground  of  all 
life  is  unifying  Love.  "God  was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  Himself."  Men  are  at  one  with  God  only  as  they  are  at 
one  with  themselves  and  with  each  other.  The  Church  is  the 
company  of  the  reconciled,  embodying  fellowship,  continuing  the 
life  of  God  in  Christ,  and  to  the  Church  is  committed  "the  word 
of  reconciliation." 


LECTURE  IV 
THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM 

"Go  ye  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,"  has  stood  before 
the  Church's  eyes  as  the  climax  of  her  First  Gospel ;  but  she  has 
often  read  the  words  to  mean  only  "make  disciples  of  individuals 
in  all  the  nations."  The  words  certainly  mean  that,  and  many  a 
splendid  evangelistic  campaign  and  missionary  enterprise  has 
been  inspired  by  them.  But  they  as  certainly  mean  more — that 
nations  are  to  be  made  disciples  of  Jesus.  The  corporate  as  well 
as  the  personal  life  of  men  must  be  brought  under  His  sway. 
St.  Paul  thought  of  God  as  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself 
through  Christ.  There  is  a  gospel  for  society  no  less  than  for 
the  individual;  and  it  is  the  same  gospel  for  both — the  good  tid- 
ings of  new  life  with  Christ  in  God.  An  evangelism  which  does 
not  present  both  aspects  of  the  Gospel — the  corporate  and  the 
personal — does  justice  to  neither  and  is  not  "the  whole  counsel 
of  God."  We  are  familiar  with  fervid  savers  of  souls,  who  define 
sin  exclusively  in  individualistic  terms,  as  personal  dishonesty  or 
drunkenness  or  unchastity,  and  plead  for  an  acceptance  of  Christ 
as  Saviour  from  these,  without  a  word  of  corporate  iniquity  for 
which  the  individual  must  bear  his  responsibility,  or  of  the  new 
social  life  of  righteousness  into  which  Christ  brings  His  disciples 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  And  we  are  familiar  with  zealous  saviours 
of  society,  who  denounce  social  injustices  and  picture  the  right- 
eous community,  but  do  not  press  home  the  necessity  for  a  per- 
sonal devotion  to  Christ  as  Lord,  that  men  and  women  may 
be  new  creatures  in  Him.  Neither  presents  the  full-orbed 
Evangel.  The  former  rescue  men  from  a  number  of  specific 


54  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

sins — often  most  ruinous  iniquities,  so  that  one  would  not  make 
light  of  their  great  salvation — but  rescue  them  to  a  most  imper- 
fectly Christianized  conscience,  which  functions  only  in  a  small 
circle  of  duties.  They  give  their  converts  no  vision  of  their  homes, 
their  business,  their  town,  their  country,  in  Christ  Jesus.  In 
consequence  these  saved  souls  are  frequently  most  unchristian 
kinsmen,  traders,  voters,  patriots.  The  latter  deal  too  lightly 
with  specific  transgressions,  losing  sight  of  the  necessity  for 
confession  to  those  whom  they  have  wronged  and  for  restitution 
wherever  possible,  minimizing  the  personal  tie  between  the  soul 
and  Christ  with  the  miracle  of  regeneration  and  continuous  re- 
newal through  believing  contact  with  Him,  and  frequently  pass- 
ing over  the  obligation  that  rests  on  every  disciple  to  bring  others 
to  an  avowed  loyalty  to  his  Lord.  Both  the  individual  and  the 
social  demands  and  promises  of  the  Gospel  must  enter  into  a  truly 
Christian  evangelism. 

An  inadequate  evangelism  is  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of 
what  the  Gospel  is.  Our  earliest  biographer  of  Jesus  introduces 
His  ministry  with  the  statement:  "Now  after  John  was  delivered 
up,  Jesus  came  into  Galilee,  preaching  the  Gospel  of  God."  The 
Gospel  is  essentially  good  news  concerning  God.  Many  evange- 
lists, however  useful  they  may  be  as  denouncers  of  vice,  or  as 
recruiting  agents  for  the  Church  organization,  fail  to  bring  any 
good  tidings  of  God.  Many  preachers  of  social  righteousness, 
however  valuable  their  exposure  of  corporate  injustice  and  their 
quickening  of  consciences,  leave  their  hearers  with  no  more 
strengthening  trust  in  God  nor  glowing  love  for  Him.  Neither 
really  preaches  the  Gospel.  That  which  saves  a  man  or  a  nation 
is  nothing  less  than  God  Himself;  and  no  message  which  does 
not  place  Him  in  the  forefront,  making  men  understand  Him 
more  clearly  and  love  Him  more  dearly,  is  an  evangelical  message. 
And  once  let  God  be  set  forth  as  He  is  in  Christ,  and  the  life  with 
Him  in  Christ  pictured  in  its  fulness,  no  man  can  fail  to  hear 
good  news  for  himself  and  for  every  group  to  which  he  belongs. 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  55 

Such  a  God  really  believed  in  means  both  personal  and  corporate 
salvation — new  creatures  in  a  new  creation. 

Let  us  begin  by  looking  carefully  at  the  message  of  our  min- 
istry of  evangelism,  for  unhappily  so  much  that  passes  by  the 
name  is  not  genuinely  the  Gospel.  The  deity  officially  recog- 
nized by  nominally  Christian  nations  has  rarely  been  the  Chris- 
tian God.  The  deity  proclaimed  by  many  a  Christian  pulpit  and 
embodied  in  many  a  creed  and  ritual  is  not  the  God  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  appalling  catastrophe  which  has  engulfed  our  mod- 
ern world  is  ultimately  traceable  to  religious  ignorance  and  un- 
belief; our  sole  hope  of  social  rebuilding  along  lines  that  will 
endure  is  the  proclamation  of  the  Gospel  of  God,  and  the  making 
of  men  and  nations  disciples  of  His  Son. 

Men  want  a  God  big  enough  to  remake  a  world  and  good  enough 
to  make  it  a  Christian  world.  These  two  requisites  are  con- 
veniently summed  up  in  two  sayings  on  the  lips  of  Jesus  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel:  "He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father," 
and  "the  Father  is  greater  than  I." 

Our  God  is  Christlike — that  certifies  His  goodness.  The  God- 
manhood  of  Jesus,  which  is  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  catholic, 
evangelical  Christianity,  is  not  primarily  a  statement  concerning 
Jesus — what  He  is  speaks  for  itself — but  a  statement  concern- 
ing the  invisible  God  and  of  ourselves.  If  the  Jesus  of  the  New 
Testament  be  the  image  of  the  Most  High,  then  we  know  what 
is  the  supreme  power  and  wisdom  in  the  universe — love  like  His. 
Men  and  nations  are  made  disciples  when  won  to  rely  on  such 
love  as  the  most  forceful  and  clever  thing  in  the  world.  No  man 
is  truly  a  disciple  who  deems  something  else  a  safer  political 
principle  or  a  more  successful  commercial  policy.  To  lead  men 
to  see  God  in  the  face  of  Christ,  to  believe  that  He  never  deals 
with  them  otherwise  than  as  Jesus  dealt  with  men,  that  God  bears, 
believes,  hopes,  endures  all  and  never  fails  with  the  love  that  was 
in  Him,  is  the  means  of  reproducing  that  filial  trust  which  was 
His;  and  that  is  saving  faith.  The  commonest  and  deadliest 


56  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

heresy  among  so-called  orthodox  Christians  is  the  practical  denial 
of  the  Godlikeness  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  virtual  abandonment  of 
the  central  conviction  of  Paul  and  Athanasius  and  Luther,  by 
picturing  God  as  dealing  with  men,  and  as  sanctioning  their  deal- 
ing with  one  another,  in  ways  unlike  those  of  the  Jesus  of  history. 
"Begin,"  writes  Luther,  "by  applying  thy  skill  and  study  to 
Christ,  there  also  let  them  continue  fixed,  and  if  thine  own 
thoughts  or  reason  or  someone  else  guide  and  direct  thee  other- 
wise, only  close  thine  eyes  and  say:  I  must  and  will  know  of  no 
other  God  save  in  my  Lord  Christ.  See,  there  open  up  to  me 
my  Father's  heart,  will  and  work,  and  I  know  Him." 

God  so  seen  in  Christ  must  in  a  world  like  ours  be  a  struggler 
battling  and  toiling  for  His  heart's  desire;  a  sufferer,  pained 
and  thwarted  by  the  selfishness  and  wrong  of  His  children;  a 
comrade,  who  needs  friends  and  gives  Himself  to  them  that  in 
fellowship  they  may  rear  the  city  of  His  and  their  faith  and  hope. 
God  is  like  Jesus. 

And  He  is  greater — that  certifies  His  sufficiency.  As  the  ocean 
is  vaster  but  not  other  than  a  bay,  so  the  Father  transcends  the 
Son.  This  allows  for  the  cosmic  relations  of  the  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth  which  could  not  be  disclosed  in  One  whose  life  was 
within  the  world.  We  amplify  our  thought  of  the  Most  High 
from  His  Self-disclosures  in  Israel's  experience,  and  in  the  experi- 
ences of  the  believing  in  other  nations  (for  He  hath  not  left  Him- 
self anywhere  without  witness),  from  the  hints  and  suggestions 
of  science  and  art  and  the  ideals  of  men,  with  their  intimations 
of  the  True,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Good.  Christ  defines  but  does 
not  confine  our  thought  of  God.  We  have  a  boundless  prospect 
before  us  in  our  explorations  of  Him  and  in  His  revelations  of 
Himself  to  us.  In  God  we  possess  both  a  home  and  a  horizon: 
He  is  like  Christ — that  satisfies,  rests,  assures  us ;  He  is  greater — 
that  increases  our  trust,  whets  our  curiosity  and  sets  before  us 
infinite  reaches. 

We  have  been  putting  somewhat  theologically  what  must  be  put 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  57 

only  in  picturesque  and  moving  language  in  our  evangelistic  mes- 
sage. But  it  is  not  the  method  of  its  presentation  but  the  content 
of  the  message  that  concerns  us  for  the  moment.  Men  and  nations 
are  saved  by  knowing  and  trusting  the  only  living  and  true  God. 

And  here  we  face  the  most  serious  intellectual  difficulty  of  the 
day:  Is  there  such  a  living  God?  All  other  questions  put  by 
inquiring  spirits — the  historicity  of  the  narrative  of  some  miracle, 
the  value  of  prayer,  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  the  certainty  of 
immortality — come  back  to  this  fundamental  query :  Is  Christ  an 
ideal  in  men's  minds  only,  or  is  He  the  portrait  of  a  living  God? 
It  is  asked  on  a  university  campus,  in  a  meeting  of  workingmen, 
in  a  remote  village  in  China.  As  preachers  of  the  Gospel  of  God 
we  must  face  it.  And  how  shall  we  handle  it  ? 

It  may  be  wise  to  begin  by  reminding  men  that  this  image  is 
not  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  on  but  the  solid  texture  of 
the  impression  of  an  historic  life.  It  has  not  merely  been 
fancied;  it  has  been  lived.  It  is,  therefore,  part  of  the  fabric  of 
the  universe,  an  event  in  its  history;  and  if  the  universe  be  the 
work  of  a  creative  Father,  would  it  not  have  been  like  Him  to 
have  sought  to  image  Himself  to  His  children? 

It  helps  further  to  point  out  that  we  see  our  fellow-men  only 
through  images — tiny  images  the  fraction  of  an  inch  in  dimensions 
on  the  retinae  of  our  eyes — and  that  through  these  images  the 
richest  and  tenderest  intercourse  of  life  is  carried  on.  We  exist 
for  each  other  in  the  mind's  eye.  Repeated  experiences  alter  and 
clarify  these  images  of  our  friends ;  and  what  comes  to  us  through 
the  image  is  the  decisive  test  of  its  correspondence  with  a  living 
being  whom  it  mirrors  to  us.  Men  have  had  various  images  of 
the  invisible  God  through  the  centuries ;  their  very  number  sug- 
gests the  actuality  of  Someone  there;  and  they  have  discarded 
the  less  for  the  more  accurate.  Think  of  the  long  row  of  dis- 
carded divinities  !  "Where  are  the  gods  of  Hamath  and  of  Arpad? 
where  are  the  gods  of  Sepharvaim,  of  Hena,  and  Ivvah?" 


58  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Apollo,  Pallas,  Jove  and  Mars 

Held  undisturb'd  their  ancient  reign 
In  the  solemn  midnight 
Centuries  ago. 

The  Christian  image  of  God  in  Jesus  is  combating  today  other 
images  of  Deity  on  mission  fields  and  among  nominally  Christian 
nations.  Through  which  image  does  the  most  come  to  men  ?  That 
image  will  prevail;  and  that  which  the  image  succeeds  in  convey- 
ing is  the  only  criterion  of  what  is  behind  it  and  to  which  it  corre- 
sponds. "Trust  God  in  Christ,"  we  say,  "and  see  what  fellow- 
ship will  be  yours."  An  intelligent  Jewess,  who  had  gone  through 
a  varied  religious  career,  passing  from  orthodox  through  reformed 
Judaism,  then  through  the  Ethical  Culture  Society,  once,  at  the 
close  of  a  service  where  the  Gospel  of  God  had  been  preached, 
said:  "Now  I  see."  "See  what?"  was  asked  her.  "See  that  all 
I  can  think  of  in  the  God  I  adore  I  see  in  Jesus,  and  all  I  want 
a  God  for  Jesus  does  for  me." 

It  is  also  well  to  distinguish  between  the  actuality  of  God  and 
our  sense  of  it.  Visitors  to  Japan  are  eager  to  see  its  famous 
Mt.  Fuji;  but  they  may  easily  spend  a  month  or  more  within 
sight  of  its  snow-capped  dome  and  never  have  a  glimpse  of  it. 
Fogs,  haze,  clouds,  may  wrap  it  from  their  eyes.  They  will  see 
Fuji  pictured  on  a  thousand  articles — screens,  teacups,  fans, 
postcards — the  representations  of  it  differing  according  to  the 
skill  or  taste  of  the  artist,  and  the  point  from  which  he  took  his 
view.  Many  of  the  pictures  are  conventionalized  Fujis,  drawn 
at  second  or  at  twentieth  hand  by  men  who  have  not  tried  to  put 
down  what  they  saw  with  their  own  eyes ;  but  there  the  mountain 
is,  portrayed  again  and  again  and  again  as  Japan's  chief  glory. 
They  will  hear  certain  places  praised  for  their  outlooks  upon  it, 
and  will  find  tea-houses  built  at  points  said  to  command  lovely 
or  majestic  prospects.  They  will  notice  advertisements  of 
arrangements  for  ascending  it  at  certain  seasons ;  and  they  can 
talk  with  those  who  have  themselves  climbed  to  its  top.  They 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  59 

may  not  see  it  with  their  own  eyes,  and  no  one  may  be 
able  to  show  it  to  them  at  the  moment;  but  there  is  con- 
vincing testimony  to  its  existence;  and  trusting  that  evi- 
dence, if  they  will  set  their  faces  in  the  right  direction,  and 
possess  normal  eyes,  and  will  wait,  they  shall  see  Fuji.  A  man 
may  have  no  personal  assurance  of  the  living  God,  and  no  one 
may  be  able  at  once  to  help  him  to  that  certainty.  Let  him  look 
about  and  see  signs  of  religious  faith  all  around  him — the  face 
of  God  on  human  lives,  more  or  less  skilfully  reproduced  as  men 
have  the  will  or  the  power  at  first  hand  or  at  second  hand  to 
enter  into  fellowship  with  Him ;  let  him  notice  particularly  God's 
face  on  one  Life  who  millions  agree  was  closest  to  Him.  Let  him 
take  knowledge  of  men  and  women  who  claim,  or  for  whom  others 
claim,  that  friendship  with  God  is  the  inspiration  of  the  best,  the 
most  useful  and  the  fairest  things  about  them.  Let  him  observe 
institutions  founded,  arrangements  maintained,  methods  com- 
mended, to  assist  intercourse  with  the  Most  Highest.  Let  him 
talk  with  those  who  have  themselves  found  Him  their  strength, 
their  peace,  their  exceeding  joy.  Then  let  him  set  himself  trust- 
fully and  obediently  towards  God,  as  they  tell  him;  let  him  live 
on  thus ;  and,  if  his  heart  have  eyes,  he,  too,  shall  see  the  living 
God. 

And  once  men  believe  the  Gospel  of  God,  they  can  believe  that 
His  Kingdom  is  at  hand — not  merely  some  faint  beginnings  of  it, 
or  some  slight  developments  of  it,  but  the  world-wide  social  order 
of  love  in  which  He  is  all  in  all.  The  Kingdom  is  at  hand  in  Him, 
who  is  eager  and  able  to  bring  it  into  being  "with  winged  expe- 
dition swift  as  the  lightning  glance,"  if  only  His  children  believe 
that  it  can  come  and  venture  themselves  with  Him  to  establish  it. 
The  message  that  bids  men  expect  to  become  very  gradually  the 
least  bit  better,  and  to  see  our  world  slowly  and  imperceptibly 
improved,  misrepresents  God  and  dwarfs  faith.  God's  righteous 
rule  with  all  its  blessings  is  at  hand  both  for  individuals  and  for 
the  corporate  life  of  mankind ;  His  salvation  would  "through  and 


60  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

through  cleanse  the  foul  body  of  the  infected  world";  and  His 
mercy  is  upon  us  according  as  we  hope  in  Him.  To  postpone 
the  anticipation  of  durable  world  peace,  or  of  brotherly  indus- 
trial relations,  to  defer  the  hope  of  the  alteration  of  human 
nature  in  nations  or  in  some  particular  man  or  woman  to  a 
remote  tomorrow,  is  to  rob  the  tidings  of  their  goodness,  is  to 
negate  the  Gospel.  Lack  of  faith,  or  little  faith,  Jesus  com- 
plained of  oftener  than  of  anything  else.  A  God  who  comes 
quickly,  who  is  able  and  wistful  to  fulfil  His  will  straightway,  is 
our  good  news. 

A  day  in  April  never  came  so  sweet, 

To  show  how  costly  summer  was  at  hand. 

But  there  must  be  no  belittling  the  completeness  of  the  trans- 
formations which  His  Kingdom  demands.  The  awfulness  of  the 
world-wide  tragedy  and  the  appalling  moral  shipwrecks  in  men 
and  women  at  our  side  accuse  us  of  having  healed  far  too  lightly 
humanity's  hurt  and  of  having  preached  peace,  where  there  was 
no  peace.  The  more  specifically  and  searchingly  we  set  forth 
what  life  under  God's  rule  means  for  a  man  or  for  society  the 
better.  Conscience  wakens  and  men  come  to  a  sense  of  sin.  It 
is  a  fashion  to  say  that  this  is  no  longer  a  potent  factor  in 
religion  among  us;  but  that  is  a  shallow  misreading  of  facts. 
Show  men  God  in  Christ,  and  the  contrast  between  Him  and  them- 
selves, between  His  Spirit  and  that  which  pervades  the  social  life 
in  which  they  move,  is  overwhelming.  The  great  revival  of  religion 
which  ushered  in  the  public  ministry  of  Jesus  seems  to  have  come 
to  Him,  as  to  thousands  of  others,  as  a  call  to  repentance.  Schol- 
ars have  cast  about  for  some  explanation  why  He,  the  sinless, 
underwent  John's  baptism  of  remission.  John  was  preaching 
corporate  righteousness  for  Israel,  appealing  to  men  in  their 
callings  as  soldiers,  tax-farmers,  religious  leaders,  to  change  their 
minds  that  they  might  fit  into  the  new  order  which  God  was  about 
to  set  up  in  their  nation.  Is  not  the  simplest  explanation  that 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  61 

Jesus  felt,  and  felt  far  more  keenly  than  any  other,  social  shame 
and  a  craving  for  the  new  life  of  His  people  with  their  God? 
Today,  whether  burdened  or  not  with  a  sense  of  personal  wrong- 
doing, men  are  faced  with  the  frightful  results  of  corporate  trans- 
gression. God's  judgments  on  national  greed,  on  trust  in  organ- 
ized brute  might,  on  contempt  for  Christlike  love,  are  abroad 
in  the  earth,  and  have  come  home  in  unutterable  suffering  to  mil- 
lions of  hearts.  The  guilt  for  this  must  be  brought  home  as 
personally. 

We  are  all  diseased, 

And  with  our  surfeiting  and  wanton  hours 
Have  brought  ourselves  into  a  burning  fever, 
And  we  must  bleed  for  it. 

A  conscience  awakened  to  responsibility  in  social  guilt  will  soon 
focus  itself  on  the  more  immediate  circle  of  life  about  its  possessor 
and  bring  to  sight  the  hideous  consequences  of  his  own  self-seeking, 
unfairness,  indulgence  and  distrust.  While  it  is  not  the  good 
news  to  show  a  man  his  sin  and  his  nation's  sin,  it  is  the  best 
news  so  to  show  him  God  that  he  is  shamed  with  what  he  is  and 
with  what  his  people  are.  There  is  nothing  healthy-minded  in 
self-complacency.  Bagehot  well  said:  "So  long  as  men  are  very 
imperfect,  the  sense  of  great  imperfection  should  cleave  to  them." 
And  here  the  cross  becomes  central  in  the  Evangel,  and  Christ 
crucified  as  sin-bearer  the  supreme  Gospel  of  God.  Our  social 
thinking  renders  this  convincing.  Jesus  bore  sin  in  the  sense  that 
it  was  the  collective  evil  of  His  world,  in  the  Church  with  its 
nationalistic  and  class  religion,  in  the  State  with  its  military 
imperialism,  in  the  commercial  life  which  invaded  even  the  house 
of  prayer  with  its  greed  of  gain,  and  in  the  public  opinion  of  a 
host  of  indifferent  and  irresponsible  nobodies,  which  nailed  Him 
to  the  cross.  Such  a  Calvary  is  no  past  event  merely,  but  a  pres- 
ent occurrence;  Christ's  brethren  are  crucified  by  similar  forces, 
and  with  them  Him,  and  with  Him  God.  "I  thought  once,  on  the 


62  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Somme,"  wrote  a  British  sergeant,  "that  the  two  races  facing 
each  other  in  such  agony  were  as  the  two  thieves  on  their  crosses, 
reviling  each  other,  and  that  somewhere  between  us,  if  we  could 
but  see,  was  Christ  on  His  Cross.  Whatever  we  called  our  motives, 
we  who  fought  aimed  equally  at  our  enemies  through  Christ." 
(We  should  wish  to  distinguish  between  the  penitent  and  the  im- 
penitent thief.)  Again,  He  bore  sin  in  the  sense  that  every  fault 
and  failure  and  folly  of  His  brethren  was  social  guilt  for  which 
His  sensitive  conscience  charged  Him  with  accountability.  He 
was  the  Conscience  of  the  whole  family  of  the  less  conscientious 
children  of  God,  and  that  conscience  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of 
them  all. 

All  woes  of  all  men  sat  upon  Thy  soul 

And  all  their  wrongs  were  heavy  on  Thy  head ; 
With  all  their  wounds  Thy  heart  was  pierced  and  bled, 
And  in  Thy  spirit  as  in  a  mourning  scroll 
The  world's  huge  sorrows  were  inscribed  by  roll, 
All  theirs  on  earth  who  serve  and  faint  for  bread, 
All  banished  men's,  all  theirs  in  prison  dead. 

And  He  still  is  the  Conscience  of  humanity,  the  unveiling  for  us 
of  our  Father's  conscience,  who  feels  Himself  implicated  in  all 
that  His  children  do  and  in  all  that  they  are.  And  again,  Jesus 
bore  sin  in  the  sense  that  His  sympathetic  kinship  with  the  guilty 
made  Him  feel  the  crushing  shame  they  were  too  obtuse  to  feel. 
His  kinship  with  them  took  Him  down  into  the  uttermost  darkness 
where  He  felt  Himself  abandoned:  "My  God,  My  God,  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me?"  That  He  endured  that  no  child  of  God 
need  ever  repeat  His  awful  loneliness,  for  at  our  farthest  from 
our  Father's  face  we  are  met  by  a  wondrous  Companion,  who 
leads  us  surely  home,  Himself  the  way.  And  His  Church  and 
every  member  of  it  must  follow  Him  sharing  His  atoning  ministry. 
In  His  sin-bearing  Christ  is  both  substitute  and  exemplar,  the 
path-finder,  whose  solitary  sacrifice  in  exploring  faith  need  never 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  63 

be  repeated,  and  the  path-maker,  whose  way  of  love  must  be  con- 
stantly trod  by  all  who  would  live  with  His  and  their  Father. 

For  the  immediate  hour  we  need  to  interpret  the  impoverish- 
ment of  the  nations  and  the  outpouring  of  blood  in  the  light  of 
Calvary,  so  that  it  may  be  seen  as  a  judgment  both  upon  our 
enemies  and  ourselves  for  an  unrighteous  international  and  com- 
mercial order,  a  judgment  by  which  sensitive  consciences  are 
moved  to  a  contagious  repentance ;  and  as  a  sacrifice  in  which  both 
the  more  and  the  less  blameworthy  share  a  fellowship  of  suffer- 
ing, and  the  just  suffer  for  the  unjust,  in  atonement  for  corporate 
sin  to  redeem  the  world  to  "heart-sorrow  and  a  clear  life  ensuing." 
Viewed  in  this  light,  whether  the  war  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  imperialistic  exploitation  shall  be  sunk,  and  all  the  drain 
of  militarism  on  the  life  of  the  toilers  of  the  world  be  paid  in 
blood,  we  shall  still  say  with  Lincoln:  "The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether." 

We  never  proclaim  God  at  His  best  until  we  preach  Christ 
crucified.  The  cross  is  still  an  offence,  and  if  we  place  national 
ambitions,  political  platforms,  commercial  principles,  educational 
ideals,  personal  motives,  side  by  side  with  the  cross,  men  are  faced 
with  revealing  decisions  of  what  they  deem  weakness  and  folly. 
The  cross  challenges  to  the  same  daring  that  was  His  who  first 
bore  it.  To  hazard  the  national  policies  and  the  industrial  rela- 
tions demanded  by  the  Spirit  of  Calvary  involves  serious  risks; 
they  will  almost  surely  bring  experiences  akin  to  Gethsemane  and 
Golgotha;  but  it  is  the  Gospel  that  Christ  crucified  is  the  power 
and  the  wisdom  of  God.  In  the  midst  of  the  heavenly  city  we  are 
seeking  to  build,  we  must  place  the  Lamb  as  the  light  thereof. 

And  the  Gospel  of  God  is  not  complete  save  as  we  tell  of  His 
indwelling  in  the  redeemed  community  in  His  Holy  Spirit.  There 
is,  perhaps,  no  single  word  in  the  common  religious  vocabulary 
so  nebulous  as  the  word  "spiritual."  We  must  define  spirituality. 
We  may  begin  by  noting  the  diversity  of  types  labelled  "spiritual" 
in  the  Bible.  Here  is  Samson,  Israel's  Hercules,  the  muscular, 


64  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

passionate,  coarsely  humorous  tribal  hero  of  an  iron  age;  and 
four  times  in  the  brief  record  of  his  career  his  prodigious  feats 
are  ascribed  to  the  empowering  Spirit.  Here  is  Bezalel,  in  whose 
artistic  craftsmanship  pious  recorders  of  Israel's  antiquities  saw 
evidences  of  the  Spirit's  presence.  Here  is  Stephen,  whose  tact 
in  handling  disgruntled  women,  whose  logic  in  arguing  Jesus' 
Messiahship,  whose  insight  into  the  friendly  heavens,  whose  plea 
for  the  forgiveness  of  his  slayers,  are  given  as  token  that  he  is 
full  of  the  Spirit.  Here  is  Barnabas,  whose  breadth  in  welcom- 
ing believing  Gentiles  to  the  Church  at  Antioch,  and  whose  dis- 
crimination in  passing  over  unessentials  and  insisting  solely  on 
loyalty  to  Christ,  are  cited  as  signs  that  his  goodness  is  due  to 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Samson,  Bezalel,  Stephen,  Barnabas  differ 
widely:  spirituality  must  be  conceived  as  including  many  types. 
All  four  have  in  common  two  characteristics :  each  devotes  his 
powers  to  the  cause  of  God  as  he  sees  it ;  and  each  impresses  men 
as  being  himself  plus  the  present  and  acting  God.  Spirituality 
consists  of  consecration  and  inspiration.  We  must  call  upon  men 
to  yield  themselves  with  their  varied  gifts  in  their  several  callings 
to  the  purpose  of  God,  and  assure  them  that  in  and  through  them 
none  less  than  the  wise  and  mighty  Lord  of  all  will  Himself  dwell 
and  plan  and  labor.  This  will  spiritualize  the  rough  work  of  life 
wrought  by  men  of  muscle  and  the  delicate  tasks  performed  by 
men  of  taste,  the  toil  of  brain  and  the  labor  of  hearts,  so  that 
none  of  it  remains  unhallowed  and  all  of  it  is  raised  to  a  divine 
efficiency.  We  must  give  every  man  a  sense  of  mission  in  his  occu- 
pation and  the  conviction  that  He  who  sends  him  breathes  on 
him,  saying:  "Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost." 

We  must  also  point  out  that  according  to  the  Bible  the  Spirit 
of  God  in  man  is  always  a  public  spirit.  When  King  Saul  is 
turned  into  "another  man,"  it  is  not  said  that  he  became  more 
devout,  but  instead  of  being  concerned  with  the  family  matter 
of  his  father's  asses,  he  is  interested  in  all  Israel's  welfare.  When 
Jesus  is  endued  with  the  Holy  Spirit  at  the  Jordan,  no  change  is 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  65 

noted  in  His  personal  character  nor  in  His  intimacy  with  His 
Father,  but  He  ceases  to  be  a  private  person  and  comes  forward 
as  the  responsible  Servant  of  God  to  proclaim  His  Kingdom. 
Spirituality  today  must  be  manifest  in  social-mindedness.  No 
man,  no  church,  no  nation,  is  spiritual  unless  self-interests  are 
subordinated  to  the  commonweal. 

And  we  must  make  plain  that  in  the  Bible  the  Spirit  is  never  a 
personal  possession  apart  from  the  spiritual  community.  At 
Pentecost  the  Spirit  came  upon  the  believing  Church,  and  each 
Christian's  spirituality  attained  rich  growth  and  expression  be- 
cause "the  multitude  of  them  that  believed  were  of  one  heart 
and  soul."  No  individual  can  expect  to  attain  and  develop  spirit- 
ual life  in  isolation ;  he  must  be  in  the  fellowship  of  the  faithful ; 
and  the  more  inclusive  the  spiritual  fellowship  with  whose  cor- 
porate life  he  is  identified,  the  ampler  his  own  spiritual  endow- 
ment. No  single  communion  can  enrich  to  the  full  its  own  mem- 
bers so  long  as  it  is  not  consciously  in  union  with  the  whole  Body 
of  Christ.  No  individual,  however  conscientious,  can  hope  to  make 
his  business  or  his  financial  affairs  fully  spiritual  until  the  col- 
lective commercial  life  of  mankind  is  dominated  by  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus.  No  citizen  can  freely  express  spiritual  patriotism  so  long 
as  the  nation  is  not  corporately  seeking  to  be  ruled  by  the  min- 
istering purpose  of  the  Son  of  man.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
individually  we  are  not  loyally  to  follow  Christ  even  to  breaking 
the  most  sacred  ties  that  bind  us  to  family  and  Church  and  nation, 
nor  that  in  such  loyalty  God  will  not  be  with  us.  There  is  a 
saying  of  our  Lord's  which  may  contain  a  hint  of  autobiography, 
where  He  speaks  of  the  sycamine  tree,  in  obedience  to  faith,  up- 
rooted and  planted  in  the  sea.  What  more  unpropitious  soil 
for  a  tree's  roots  than  salt  waves !  May  He  not  have  felt  His 
own  life  equally  ill-nourished  from  His  surroundings  in  home  and 
town,  Church  and  nation?  By  faith  He  drew  on  what  seemed 
not  there,  and  flourished.  But  even  He  found  the  lack  of  spiritual 
fellowship  straining:  "O  faithless  generation,  how  long  shall  I  be 


66  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

with  you?"  God  craves  social  incarnation  in  a  united  Church,  a 
dedicated  business  community,  a  servant  nation;  and  only  as  we 
make  these  corporate  groups  disciples  will  their  members  attain 
unto  a  fullgrown  man  as  churchmen,  workers,  citizens,  unto  the 
measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ. 

This,  in  briefest  outline,  is  the  Gospel  of  God  for  our  day  of 
social  rebuilding;  the  old  Gospel  of  the  Father,  Saviour,  Spirit; 
of  God  as  love,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  in  Christ,  becoming 
all  in  all  in  a  Christlike  world.  The  ministry  of  evangelism  needs 
not  the  crudest  but  the  finest,  the  most  thoroughly  Christian 
thought.  If  it  be  associated  in  the  public  mind  with  outworn 
theology,  it  is  in  part  the  shame  of  those  of  us  who  possess  the 
gains  of  accurate  scholars  and  who  have  lacked  the  passion  to 
make  known  the  God  we  claim  to  know. 

But  today  passion  has  caught  fire.  We  have  been  kindled  to  a 
flaming  indignation  at  rapacious  and  domineering  arrogance  and 
at  fiendish  brutality.  The  consequences  of  sin  have  been  made 
more  frightfully  clear  to  us  in  the  horrors  and  terrors  of  Armenia 
and  Belgium,  and  in  the  brutal  carnage  of  the  trenches,  than 
Dante's  imaginative  pen  or  the  lurid  brush  of  any  Fifteenth  Cen- 
tury painter  could  portray  them.  A  world  in  desperation  de- 
mands of  the  Church  whether  she  have  a  gospel,  and  pleads 
that,  if  she  have,  she  publish  it  forthwith.  The  hot  fury  in  which 
our  consciences  have  flamed  against  intolerable  wrong  must  be 
the  passion  with  which  we  set  forth  the  saving  Gospel  of  God. 

With  regard  to  the  methods  of  this  ministry  of  evangelism,  let 
us  remind  ourselves  at  the  outset  that  the  disciple-making  spirit 
should  dominate  all  that  the  Church  does  and  is.  Every  service 
of  worship,  every  lesson  in  the  Sunday  School,  every  social  meet- 
ing, every  help  or  recreation  a  church  may  offer  a  community, 
must  have  this  as  its  ultimate  aim.  The  Church  is  not  com- 
missioned to  do  anything  for  any  man  apart  from  making  him  a 
follower  of  Jesus  Christ.  Every  one  of  its  members  must  be  dedi- 
cated to  bringing  individuals  and  the  social  groups  they  influence 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  67 

under  the  sway  of  their  Lord.  This  means  that  their  leader  in 
his  preaching,  in  his  planning  of  the  church's  work,  in  his  per- 
sonal contacts  with  men  and  women,  must  be  preeminently  an 
evangelist.  There  is  no  place  in  any  ministry  of  the  Christian 
Church  for  a  man  who  is  not  ruled  by  the  one  motive  of  making 
disciples.  An  evangelism  which  occasionally  imports  a  spiritual 
expert  to  win  people  from  a  dead  world  to  a  scarcely  living  church 
adds  little  to  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Experience  proves  that  only 
the  church  which  is  making  disciples  is  able  to  keep  and  train 
those  already  made. 

And  evangelism  is  not  a  ministry  introduced  now  and  again, 
as  an  interruption  or  a  supplement  to  the  Church's  more  usual 
work.  Its  education  is  itself  disciple-making;  its  fellowship  lifts 
up  and  draws  men  to  Christ.  A  properly  taught  Sunday  School 
lesson  needs  no  application  tacked  on  at  its  conclusion,  and  a 
thoroughly  Christian  sermon  does  not  require  an  added  special 
appeal.  But  this  does  not  exclude  the  occasional  definite  effort 
to  bring  men  to  decisions.  The  most  carefully  planned  social 
system  of  religious  education  provides  an  opportunity  in  adoles- 
cence "for  correcting  unsocial  sets  that  the  personality  may 
have  acquired"  (to  borrow  a  phrase  from  my  colleague,  Dr.  Coe). 
Seemingly  earnest  Christians  grow  indifferent  and  must  be 
brought  to  reconsecration.  Boys  and  girls  slip  through  our  Sun- 
day Schools  unmastered  by  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  and  must  be  won 
in  maturity.  A  very  large  semi-pagan  public  needs  the  impact 
of  a  concentrated  attempt  to  proclaim  God  in  Christ  and  gain 
decisive  acceptance.  The  earth  is  watered  by  steady  rains  which 
soak  in  as  soon  as  they  fall;  but  it  is  also  watered  by  an  occa- 
sional downpour  where  the  water  falls  in  sheets  and  sweeps 
obstacles  before  its  flooding  torrents. 

In  suggesting  specific  methods  for  these  more  definite  evange- 
listic attempts,  one  can  only  draw  on  personal  observations.  It 
appears  that  our  regular  services  of  worship  are  not  likely  to 
win  many  who  have  not  been  brought  up  with  some  contact  with 


68  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  Church.  Outsiders  are  more  effectively  reached  in  some  less 
formal  meeting,  such  as  a  Bible  Class,  or  a  service  in  some  home 
or  shop,  to  which  Christians  bring  neighbors  or  fellow-workmen, 
and  where  the  personal  relations  are  closer  and  more  telling  than 
in  a  large  congregation.  In  industrial  communities  the  Church 
ought  to  use  the  groupings  brought  about  by  common  occupation, 
and  to  seize  the  most  favorable  off-times  of  working  people  to 
give  its  message.  In  far  too  many  places  unless  a  man  is  willing 
to  be  saved  on  a  Sunday  at  11  a.m.  or  8  p.m.,  the  Church  opens 
no  door  for  him  to  life  with  God. 

A  series  of  special  services,  lasting  a  week  or  longer,  is  a  widely 
used  and  often  effective  means  of  enlisting  them  that  are  with- 
out. It  centres  a  congregation's  attention  upon  its  primary 
business.  It  furnishes  a  definite  object  for  preliminary  meetings 
of  companies  of  Christians  for  prayer  and  inspiration  to  personal 
effort.  The  continuous  character  of  the  presentation  of  the  mes- 
sage gives  it  cumulative  power.  The  appeal  calls  for  immediate 
decisions.  Opportunities  for  personal  interviews  can  readily  be 
provided  and  the  conversation  naturally  turns  to  the  main  point. 
Most  congregations  find  such  special  missions  rewarding. 

And  there  is  value  in  a  simultaneous  mission,  when  all  the 
churches  in  a  community  combine  their  efforts.  It  is  a  great 
thing  to  get  the  mind  of  a  whole  town  thinking  of  God,  and  its 
tongues,  usually  so  tied  on  this  theme,  speaking  freely.  A  throng 
in  a  huge  building  warms  a  man  by  its  enthusiasm  and  renders 
him  more  susceptible  to  an  infection  of  Christian  faith.  But 
there  is  often  an  ambiguity  in  decisions  pled  for  in  a  wholesale 
fashion,  and  difficulty  in  relating  those  reached  to  the  fellowship 
of  the  churches.  A  wise  pastor  will  organize  his  own  congrega- 
tion for  this  primary  task  of  gaining  disciples ;  he  will  keep  it  at 
work  constantly;  and  when  some  special  interest  is  abroad  in  the 
community,  his  church  will  be  the  readiest  to  give  intelligent 
assistance  and  the  best  fitted  to  conserve  any  results. 

The  children  of  a  congregation   are  a  minister's   evangelistic 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  69 

responsibility.  As  they  arrive  at  the  period  of  life  when  they 
determine  their  plans  for  themselves,  he  wishes  to  see  them  resolv- 
ing to  be  devotees  of  Christ.  A  Sunday  School  training  ought 
to  make  conversion  unnecessary,  but  it  should  prepare  the  way 
for  a  calmly  reached  decision.  A  pastor's  class  which  embraces 
all  the  boys  and  girls  of  an  appropriate  age,  irrespective  of  any 
previous  indication  of  desire  to  enter  the  full  communion  of 
the  Church,  gives  a  minister  a  chance  to  present  the  Christian 
life  to  them  very  concretely  with  ample  opportunity  for  ques- 
tions, and  on  the  basis  of  a  clear  understanding  to  ask  for 
deliberate  enrolment  as  followers  of  Jesus. 

There  will  always  be  room  in  the  Church  for  the  specially  gifted 
evangelist  whom  God  from  time  to  time  sends  us ;  but  there  is 
urgent  need  today  that  all  preachers  try  to  prepare  themselves 
for  this  ministry.  It  is  a  fine  thing  when  the  pastor  can  himself 
conduct  a  series  of  special  services  in  his  own  church  or  in  some 
more  neutral  building  in  his  town,  and  lead  his  people  in  their  com- 
mon effort.  If  there  is  value  in  the  sound  of  a  less  familiar  voice 
and  in  a  fresh  presentation  of  the  Gospel,  it  is  usually  wiser  to 
invite  a  man  of  pastoral  experience,  who  knows  how  to  work  with 
the  church  organization,  and  will  develop  it.  Some  of  our  com- 
munions happily  have  permanent  committees  on  evangelism, 
devised  to  give  intelligent  aid  in  this  ministry.  It  would  seem 
a  wise  proviso  to  insist  that  evangelists,  who  are  not  pastors, 
or  under  the  direction  of  their  communions  in  some  other  office, 
should  be  organized  as  were  the  preaching  orders  of  the  Medieval 
Church,  under  competent  ecclesiastical  oversight,  that  questions 
of  finance  and  of  cooperation  with  local  leaders  of  the  churches 
may  be  harmoniously  adjusted.  Pastors  with  gifts  for  this  type 
of  preaching  ought  to  be  released  from  their  pulpits  for  an 
occasional  mission  in  some  other  church.  Above  all,  the  ministry 
of  evangelism  must  be  identified  with  the  vow  of  loyalty  to  Christ 
taken  by  every  member  of  the  Church:  "Come  ye  after  Me,  and 
I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men." 


70  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

We  have  been  speaking  of  talking  the  Gospel.  It  is  striking 
how  little  the  New  Testament  says  of  this,  and  how  much  oftener 
it  speaks  of  walking  in  wisdom  towards  them  that  are  without. 
If  the  Gospel  of  God  is  news  of  a  new  social  order,  the  Church 
must  be  in  some  sense  a  foretaste  of  it,  and  her  members  exponents 
of  the  new  social  type.  All  our  talk  is  futile  until  as  employers 
and  workers,  as  citizens  and  patriots,  we  stand  manifestly  for  a 
fraternal  industrial  system,  for  a  distribution  of  the  world's  wealth 
that  allows  none  to  waste  and  none  to  want,  for  a  servant  nation, 
and  for  a  commonwealth  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth.  When  the 
Church  at  Jerusalem  seriously  undertook  to  embody  the  love  of 
Christ  in  its  communal  life,  "with  great  power  gave  the  apostles 
their  witness  of  the  resurrection  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  He  was 
manifestly  a  living  factor,  "and  the  Lord  added  unto  them  day 
by  day  those  that  were  being  saved." 

Such  a  church  stands  for  a  distinctive  type  of  life,  and  is  salt, 
light  and  leaven  in  its  community.  The  Church  of  today  suffers 
most,  perhaps,  from  her  failure  to  represent  enough  that  is  dis- 
tinctive. Her  ranks  are  full  of  moral  mediocrities.  Her  members 
are  not  clear  what  their  vow  of  allegiance  to  Christ  and  their 
fellowship  with  His  Church  demands  of  them.  We  have  swung 
far  from  the  elaborate  doctrinal  confessions  expected  of  com- 
municants in  many  churches  a  couple  of  generations  or  more  ago. 
We  agree  with  Zwingli  that  "it  is  a  Christian  man's  business  not 
to  talk  grandly  of  dogmas,  but  to  be  always  doing  arduous  and 
great  things  with  God."  We  need  to  make  plain  what  these 
arduous  and  great  things  are  in  the  rebuilding  of  a  world  after 
the  mind  of  Christ.  If  our  membership  should  show  few  or  no 
additions,  if  it  should  even  show  a  shrinkage,  that  would  be  no 
cause  for  grief,  provided  the  remnant  that  remained  were  devotees 
of  love.  But  we  need  not  fear  a  shrinkage  under  such  circum- 
stances, for  it  is  such  a  fellowship  for  which  men  are  wistful,  and 
the  summons  to  the  difficult  is  always  captivating.  Our  ministry 
of  evangelism  should  seek  to  bring  men  to  a  threefold  loyalty:  to 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  EVANGELISM  71 

Christ  as  Lord  and  Saviour,  to  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  to  the 
Church.  Each  of  these  may  be  amplified  in  detail.  The  second 
must  mean  Micah's  summary  of  Old  Testament  religion:  "to  do 
justly,  to  love  mercy  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God,"  plus  the 
distinctive  demand  of  the  New  Testament  to  be  ready  to  spend 
and  be  spent  for  those  for  whom  Christ  died;  and  the  third  may 
well  be  itemized  to  include  earnestness  in  prayer  and  in  the  study 
of  the  Scriptures,  regular  attendance  in  the  house  of  God,  per- 
sonal service  to  increase  the  Church's  usefulness  and  the  adorning 
of  her  fellowship  with  a  life  of  love.  The  church  whose  members 
intelligently  and  faithfully  fulfil  this  threefold  vow  will  not  fail 
to  proclaim  the  Gospel  of  God. 

And  we  must  not  forget  that  this  Gospel  is  the  Church's  unique 
contribution  to  the  world.  There  is  a  tendency  to  employ  her  in 
a  host  of  public  services,  and  to  appeal  to  her  to  aid  every  civic 
and  social  movement.  It  is,  no  doubt,  a  tribute  to  her  power  that 
her  assistance  should  be  so  sedulously  sought.  But  the  danger 
is  that  she  may  come  to  be  regarded  merely  as  one  among  the 
forces  for  social  welfare.  Religion,  however,  is  not  primarily 
something  useful,  but  something  fruitful.  It  is  not  a  means  of 
improving  mankind  alongside  of  other  means,  such  as  education, 
art,  politics,  and  morality;  it  is  the  parent  of  them  all — their 
fountain  of  life.  It  is  not  one  among  several  factors  cultivating 
the  soil  of  humanity;  it  is  the  source  of  its  fertility.  We  are 
busy  today  directing  the  flow  of  Christian  motives  into  many 
trenches  to  irrigate  tracts  of  life  which  hitherto  have  been  desert. 
And  this  must  be  done.  But  digging  such  ditches  is  for  the 
Church  a  minor  task;  her  main  concern  is  the  supply  of  the 
spiritual  stream.  An  earlier  generation  often  had  a  copious  river 
confined  within  far  too  few  ditches ;  we  may  find  ourselves  with  a 
vast  system  of  trenches  and  only  a  trickle  in  them.  The  living 
water  is  the  Spirit  of  God,  who  enters  and  fructifies  the  spirits 
of  men.  The  Church's  paramount  duty  is  not  to  stir  men  to 
a  number  of  endeavors,  however  useful,  but  to  bring  them 


72  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

God,  their  Saviour  and  their  Captain  in  the  salvation  of  the 
world. 

And  how  our  cruel  and  woesome  day  forces  upon  us  the  urgency 
of  heralding  the  Gospel  of  God!  Now- is  the  judgment  of  this 
world;  now  may  the  prince  of  this  world  be  cast  out,  if — if  Christ 
be  lifted  up  in  a  Church  towering  above  the  world's  ethical  level. 
At  home  and  in  the  ends  of  the  earth  the  Church  must  give  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  God  the  right  of  way  over  every  other 
concern.  We  are  not  warning  men  of  a  wrath  to  come;  they  are 
faced  with  a  wrath  that  is  here.  We  live  in  a  world  on  fire,  and 
its  only  hope  of  a  safe  and  quiet  life  is  in  faith  in  the  God  who 
is  love. 

Not  long  ago  I  was  standing  on  one  of  the  corners  of  Fifth 
Avenue  on  Murray  Hill  at  the  most  crowded  hour  in  the  after- 
noon. Two  long  lines  of  vehicles  moving  up  and  two  lines  moving 
down  the  avenue  seemed  to  fill  it  from  curb  to  curb.  There  were 
omnibuses  and  automobiles  with  shoppers  and  pleasure-seekers, 
delivery  wagons  and,  just  in  front  of  me,  a  United  States  mail- 
cart.  Suddenly  the  shrill  sound  of  a  fire  claxon  was  heard,  and  a 
hook-and-ladder  motor-truck  swung  into  the  avenue,  and  sped 
up  the  hill.  As  by  a  miracle  the  columns  of  vehicles  parted,  and 
in  the  cleared  centre  the  fire-truck  ran  without  a  stop  up  the 
avenue.  Everything  was  at  stake — homes,  pleasures,  business, 
government,  would  be  nothing,  if  the  fire  got  beyond  control. 
Today  our  entire  civilization  is  threatened.  War,  which  is  the 
result  of  greed,  trust  in  force,  a  patriotism  unhallowed  by  devo- 
tion to  mankind,  consumes  everything  of  worth.  The  Church  of 
Christ  which  is  certain  of  a  salvation,  and  of  only  one,  need  make 
no  apology  nor  speak  hesitantly,  but  with  urgent  insistence  demand 
right  of  way,  for  the  Gospel  of  God. 


LECTURE  IV 
THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP 

To  those  who  believe  that  religion  is  a  creative  force,  there  is  no 
more  socially  constructive  act  than  public  worship.  It  is  not  col- 
lective thought  about  our  highest  ideal,  valuable  as  such  united 
contemplation  is ;  it  is  a  collective  consent  to  the  living  God.  We 
thing  about  God  in  the  third  person,  we  worship  Him  in  the 
second ;  and  the  difference  in  language  between  "He"  and  "Thou" 
produces  a  vast  difference  in  results.  Talking  of  a  man  is  always 
quite  another  matter  than  talking  to  him.  His  personality,  face 
to  face,  has  a  decisive  effect  on  the  conversation.  Real  religion 
begins  only  when  one  addresses  one's  self  directly  to  God.  A 
subtle  master  of  the  soul,  Fenelon,  advised  a  correspondent:  "If 
you  are  bored  by  God,  tell  Him  that  He  bores  you."  Such  first- 
hand dealing  with  our  Highest  breaks  the  thought-enclosure  of 
our  minds  and  of  the  thinking  of  the  community  in  which  we  live, 
and  lets  in  new  inspirations.  The  picture  of  Him  whom  we  adore 
is,  to  be  sure,  our  own  thought  of  God,  and  always  limited  and 
soiled  by  our  imperfections ;  but  yielding  ourselves  up  to  Him 
through  it,  we  erect  ourselves  above  ourselves,  and  become  new- 
born— different  by  some  slight  increment  from  what  we  were 
before.  There  is  "an  access  of  mind" 

in  such  high  hour 
Of  visitation  from  the  living  God. 

Worship  is  thus   an  act  momentous   for  both  God  and  man. 
It  sets  God  free  from  the  confinements  of  His  children's  thought- 


74  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

lessness  and  contrary  wills;  it  sets  them  free  in  the  fuller  liberty 
of  their  Father's  creative  wisdom  and  energy.  He  gives  and 
they  take  their  beings  afresh  from  the  Fountain  of  life.  Their 
heredity  becomes  contemporaneous :  His  fatherhood  is  not  a  past 
fact  merely  but  a  present  process.  Adoring  men  come  again  from 
their  Divine  Kinsman  with  whom  they  have  communed  as  a  family 
in  His  household  of  faith,  and  "trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  they 
come."  Prayer  and  praise  are  not  like  balls  in  a  squash-court 
that  bounce  back  from  the  hard  walls  of  our  self-bounded  world. 
The  living  God  is  not  excluded  from  His  universe,  and  He  em- 
ploys the  processes  of  thought  in  men's  minds  for  His  entrances. 

Matthew  Arnold  was  voicing  the  experience  of  the  race  when 
he  said  that,  while  man  philosophizes  best  alone,  he  worships  best 
in  common.  This  is  partly  a  matter  of  psychology:  the  group- 
adoration  lifts  the  individual  into  a  richer  and  intenser  experi- 
ence than  would  be  his  in  isolation.  And  it  is  partly  a  more  funda- 
mental matter :  a  God  who  is  love  finds  us  readiest  for  His  incom- 
ing when  we  are  consciously  sharing  each  other's  aspirations. 
God  fulfils  His  purpose  not  through  separated  individuals  but 
through  His  Church,  and  corporate  worship  fits  for  corporate 
service. 

Worship  which  is  etymologically  "worth-ship,"  a  giving  God 
His  value,  has  a  distinctive  meaning  for  Christians.  There  are 
three  degrees  of  communion  which  men  have  with  one  another. 
A  first  is  the  sense  of  physical  presence.  A  room  has  a  different 
feeling  for  us  when  someone  is  in  it  with  us,  than  when  we  are  in 
it  alone.  A  second  is  the  sharing  of  passing  thought.  Conversa- 
tion is  an  interchange  of  the  ideals  at  the  time  in  the  minds  of  the 
speakers.  A  third  is  the  fellowship  in  purpose.  Two  persons 
may  be  half  the  circumference  of  the  globe  apart;  each  may  be 
ignorant  of  what  the  other  is  doing  or  thinking  at  the  moment ; 
but  each  is  certain  that  the  other's  interests  in  life  are  identical 
with  his  own.  They  are  "hearts  remote  but  not  asunder." 

In  all  these  three  degrees  men  experience  fellowship  with  God. 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  75 

To  many  the  sights  and  sounds  of  nature  suggest  a  Being  at  hand 
mightier  and  not  wholly  unlike  ourselves. 

The  sense  of  an  Eternal  Presence  thrills 
The  fringes  of  the  sunsets  and  the  hills. 

Music  has  a  similar  effect  on  others.  "Music,"  writes  Carlyle, 
"leads  us  to  the  verge  of  the  infinite,  and  lets  us  gaze  on  that." 
Men  try  to  reproduce  the  awesome  influence  of  nature,  the 
witchery  of  light  and  shadow,  the  mysterious  depth  of  the  forest 
and  the  suggestion  of  varied  colors,  in  their  churches,  and  by  the 
pageantry  of  ritual  give  the  spirit  this  sense  of  the  nearness  of 
Deity. 

Again,  men  try  to  share  God's  passing  thoughts.  Mystics 
make  much  of  the  immediate  touch  of  God's  mind  on  ours,  and 
speak  of  thinking  His  thoughts  after  Him. 

Or  again,  they  go  deeper,  and  seek  to  be  in  unison  of  will  with 
Him  who  is  working  out  His  purpose  through  the  centuries.  They 
may  not  have  a  vivid  sense  of  God's  presence;  that  varies  with 
temperament,  circumstances,  health.  They  may  not  feel  that 
they  share  God's  current  thought:  they  are  continually  faced 
with  baffling  situations,  and  life  eludes  their  explanations  of  it. 
God  may  seem  both  far  off  and  incomprehensible ;  but  they  are 
convinced  that  His  eternal  purpose  has  been  disclosed  in  Christ, 
and  they  adore  God  in  Him;  they  consent  to  Him,  so  that  His 
aim  and  theirs,  His  conscience  and  theirs,  are  at  one.  This  is 
worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

One  would  not  disparage  emotional  exaltation  which  makes 
men  keenly  conscious  of  God's  nearness.  Well  for  those  who 
possess  it;  and  it  is  a  legitimate  aim  of  public  worship  to  foster 
it.  But  two  persons  may  be  together  in  a  room  and  poles  apart 
in  thought  and  feeling.  Nor  would  one  rule  out  the  mystic  experi- 
ence of  immediate  touch  between  the  Divine  mind  and  ours.  But 
our  grasp  of  God's  truth  is  never  more  than  a  fractional  holding, 
and  imperfect  understanding  will  make  two  persons  face  to  face 


76  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

feel  themselves  leagues  asunder.  Genuine  communion  requires 
oneness  of  purpose.  The  New  Testament  conceives  of  true 
worship  as  "in  the  Spirit" — prayer,  praise  and  message,  under 
God's  control,  and  His  worshippers  one  in  will  with  Him.  We 
give  God  His  Christian  worth  only  as  we  approach  Him  with 
the  self-commitment  of  Jesus  and  let  Him  return  us  such  Self- 
impartation  as  He  gave  to  Jesus.  Christian  worship  may  be 
described  as  an  exchange  of  selves. 

And  these  selves  we  offer  are  not  merely  our  individual  wills 
but  the  collective  personalities  of  the  various  groups  we  represent. 
A  socially  minded  God  is  seeking  social  embodiment.  Public 
prayer  and  praise  have  been  too  individualistic;  but  the  day  of 
social  litanies,  national  penitence  and  intercession,  prayers  and 
praise  that  seek  to  commune  with  God  in  His  purpose  for  every 
aspect  of  the  community's  life,  has  arrived.  This  conscious  con- 
nexion of  the  living  God  in  common  worship  with  all  our  group 
aspirations  and  group  sins  ought  to  mean  much  for  the  release 
of  new  redemptive  inspirations,  for  the  further  admission  of  God 
into  our  lives  as  relatives,  toilers,  citizens  and  churchmen. 

Leadership  in  public  worship  demands  the  most  delicate  skill. 
One  is  employing  language,  music,  the  associations  of  a  hallowed 
place,  symbolic  acts,  the  inherited  thought  and  sentiment  of  many 
generations,  the  fresh  light  of  the  current  day,  to  form  a  high- 
way for  God  into  the  lives  of  a  congregation,  and  through  them 
into  a  community's  life.  Such  leadership  is  an  art  which  works 
in  the  sensitive  materials  of  the  minds,  hearts  and  consciences  of 
living  beings  to  enact  God. 

To  be  effective  public  worship  must  meet  four  requirements : 

First,  it  must  hold  the  worshippers'  attention.  Throughout 
they  must  be  kept  mentally  alert  and  focussed  on  Him  who  is 
invisible  in  His  various  relations  with  them  and  their  world.  How 
deftly  all  its  elements  must  be  arranged  to  rivet  interest!  In  a 
striking  bit  of  self-analysis,  John  Donne  in  one  of  his  funeral 
sermons  makes  this  confession  regarding  his  private  devotions: 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  77 

"I  throw  myself  down  in  my  chamber,  and  I  call  in  and  invite  God 
and  His  angels  together;  and  when  they  are  there,  I  neglect  God 
and  His  angels  for  the  noise  of  a  fly,  for  the  rattling  of  a  coach, 
for  the  whining  of  a  door;  I  talk  on  in  the  same  posture  of 
prayer,  eyes  lifted  up,  knees  bowed  down,  as  though  I  prayed  to 
God ;  and  if  God  should  ask  me  when  I  last  thought  of  Him  in  that 
prayer  I  cannot  tell.  Sometimes  I  find  that  I  forgot  what  I  am 
about;  but  when  I  began  to  forget  it,  I  cannot  tell.  A  memory 
of  yesterday's  pleasures,  a  fear  of  tomorrow's  dangers,  a  straw 
under  my  knee,  a  noise  in  mine  ear,  a  chimera  in  my  brain,  troubles 
me  in  my  prayer."  We  recognize  that  as  an  accurate  picture  of 
what  occurs  with  almost  all  of  us  during  part,  and  often  the 
greatest  part,  of  public  worship.  An  incongruous  hodgepodge 
of  irrelevant  matters  from  without  and  up  from  within  pop  into 
people's  heads  in  the  collective  inattention  or  partial  attention 
produced  by  most  church  services.  Attention  can  only  be  com- 
manded by  a  continuous  succession  of  things  that  interest. 
Sermons,  hymns  and  particularly  prayers  (which  are  most 
liable  to  be  padded  with  merely  conventional  phraseology), 
ought  to  be  composed  of  sufficient  thought  to  keep  the  mind 
employed. 

Second,  it  must  awaken  their  imaginations.  God,  like  every- 
thing else,  is  real  to  us  only  as  we  see  Him,  and  that  means  the 
forming  of  a  mental  image.  All  that  enters  into  worship — those 
for  whom  we  pray,  the  blessings  we  name  in  praise,  the  selves 
we  aspire  to  be,  the  ideals  we  cherish  for  homes  and  commerce 
and  nations — have  to  be  pictured,  and  pictured  not  in  forms  and 
colors  of  the  world  of  sense  but  in  their  relation  to  God  in  light 
that  never  was  on  sea  or  land.  Keats,  as  a  medical  student,  writes 
in  a  letter:  "The  other  day  during  the  lecture  there  came  a  sun- 
beam into  the  room,  and  with  it  a  whole  troop  of  creatures  float- 
ing in  the  ray ;  and  I  was  off  with  them  to  Oberon  and  fairyland." 
Worship  must  bring  to  a  congregation  a  similar  ray  from  Him 
in  whom  is  no  darkness  at  all,  and  let  them  see  the  whole  troop 


78  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

of  their  relations  and  obligations  in  its  light,  until  they  are  off 
to  God  and  the  land  that  ought  to  be.  The  prosaic  has  no  place 
in  a  church  service  or  rather  no  more  place  than  to  serve  as 
the  frame  for  a  picture.  Hymn,  prayer,  sermon,  should  be  of 
imagination  all  compact.  Worship  must  be  throughout  symbolic ; 
and  the  symbols,  be  they  material  like  the  bread  and  wine  on  the 
Lord's  Table,  or  gestures  like  the  uplifted  hands  in  benediction, 
or  such  unsubstantial  things  as  words  and  musical  sounds,  are 
to  be  valued  to  the  extent  that  they  are  translucent — windows 
through  which  light  streams  from  God.  Worship  ought  to  be 
a  series  of  visions. 

Third,  it  must  stir  their  feelings.  A  comprehensively  arranged 
order  of  worship,  providing  for  invocation,  confession,  thanks- 
giving, petition,  intercession,  consecration  and  adoration,  ought 
to  take  a  congregation  through  a  whole  gamut  of  moods.  The 
worshipper  must  feel  wistful,  again  feel  abasedly  sorry,  again  feel 
exaltedly  grateful/  again  feel  eagerly  craving,  warmly  sympa- 
thetic, firmly  resolved,  glowingly  satisfied.  And  worship  is  not 
effective  unless  these  feelings  are  intense.  It  takes  something  like 
an  eruption  of  emotion  to  break  through  the  crust  of  the  con- 
ventional and  release  the  creative  faculties  of  men's  souls.  Now 
no  intense  feeling  can  be  long  sustained.  Richard  Hooker  wisely 
defended  the  divisions  in  the  elements  in  the  worship  of  the  An- 
glican Liturgy:  "Forasmuch  as  effectual  prayer  is  joined  with  a 
vehement  intention  of  the  interior  powers  of  the  soul,  which  can- 
not therein  long  continue  without  pain,  it  hath  been  therefore 
thought  good  so  by  turns  to  interpose  still  somewhat  for  the 
higher  part  of  the  mind,  the  understanding,  to  work  upon  that 
both  being  kept  in  continual  exercise  by  variety,  neither  might 
feel  any  great  weariness,  and  yet  each  be  a  spur  to  other." 

A  service  must  pass  fairly  rapidly  from  mood  to  mood.  The 
hymns  ought  not  to  be  all  alike,  whether  contemplative  or  active, 
whether  viewing  God  objectively  in  nature  or  history  or  in  His 
present  purpose  in  the  world,  or  musing  on  Him  within  ourselves. 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  79 

Psalter  and  Scripture  lesson  should  not  both  be  chosen  to  fit  in 
with  the  mood  of  the  sermon.  The  prayers  should  be  consciously 
framed  to  meet  other  needs  and  voice  other  wants  than  those  to 
which  the  message  is  directed.  Monotony  kills  fervor,  and  we 
scarcely  worship  without  glow.  The  service  must  provide  variety 
and  concentration.  Variety  in  the  posture  of  the  body — bowing 
or  kneeling,  sitting,  standing;  variety  in  participation  in  the 
service — actively  joining  in  prayer  or  praise  or  reading,  or  pas- 
sively receiving  with  active  thought ;  variety  in  the  topics  contem- 
plated— humbling,  exalting,  resting,  arousing;  variety  in  the 
turning  of  the  mind  outward,  inward,  upward;  variety  in  the 
freshness  or  the  familiarity  of  the  music,  the  prayers,  the  ele- 
ments of  instruction,  surprising  the  soul  by  the  unusual  and 
striking  melody,  in  phrase,  in  thought,  and  moving  it  by  that 
which  has  the  association  of  sentiment — the  familiar  hymn,  the 
historic  prayer,  the  hallowed  Scripture,  the  traditional  rite,  the 
acknowledged  conviction ; — variety  is  essential  to  maintain  inten- 
sity of  feeling — utter  restfulness  and  knit  resolve.  And  so  is 
concentration.  One  thing  at  a  time  should  occupy  a  prayer,  if 
a  body  of  people  are  to  agree  as  touching  their  asking  and  feel 
together  in  a  collective  emotion.  It  is  a  mistake  to  mix  confes- 
sion, thanksgiving,  intercession  in  the  same  sentence.  The  accom- 
panying feelings  are  a  jumble.  As  in  successful  baseball  it  is  a 
good  rule  to  "bunch  your  hits,"  to  gather  enough  concrete  char- 
acterizations of  sins  in  a  confession  to  abase  a  congregation  in 
penitence,  to  sum  up  enough  definite  benefits  in  a  thanksgiving 
to  lift  them  in  ecstatic  gratitude,  and  to  assemble  in  an  inter- 
cession enough  men  and  women  of  other  kindreds  and  tongues 
and  stations  and  plights  to  expand  those  who  pray  in  inclusive 
sympathies.  Worship  must  move  men.  This  is  not  to  disparage 
the  calm  judgment  with  which  we  Protestants  rightly  insist  they 
must  discern  the  will  of  God  for  them,  in  all  that  the  Church 
presents  through  its  accredited  leaders.  But  we  cannot  in  praise 
and  prayer  come  close  to  God  without  having  our  hearts  burn 


80  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

within  us;  nor  does  His  light  break  upon  us  in  its  splendor,  with 
out  giving  us 

that  thrill  of  dawn, 
When  the  whole  truth-touched  man  burns  up,  one  fire. 

Fourth,  it  must  enlist  their  consciences.  The  ultimate  test 
of  worship  is  the  extent  to  which  a  congregation  agrees  with  God. 
The  aesthetic  enjoyment  of  a  musical  service  is  of  no  Christian 
value  save  as  it  makes  men  more  truly  one  with  their  Father's 
purpose.  A  sermon  may  fascinate  men's  interest  and  rouse  their 
emotions  without  ministering  communion  with  the  God  and  Father 
of  Jesus  Christ ;  that  occurs  only  when  they  are  moved  to  will  as 
He  wills.  A  congregation  enters  a  church  a  chaos  of  conflicting 
purposes;  group  interests — race  prejudices,  nationalistic  ambi- 
tions, class  aims,  family  feelings,  clannish  and  cliquish  motives — 
dominate  them;  they  have  a  score  or  more  antagonistic  elements 
jarring  within  themselves — resentments  and  acquiescences,  doubt- 
ings  and  believings,  selfish,  and  unselfish  motives,  snarled  and 
twisted  beyond  any  human  unravelling,  hopes  and  despairs,  brute 
passions  and  angelic  aspirations,  a  legion  of  demons  and  seraphs. 
Their  corporate  worship  must  lift  them  into  unison  with  God, 
into  unison  with  one  another — His  family  in  this  small  subsection 
of  His  household  of  faith,  into  unison  with  His  Church  universal— 
the  Divine  Community  which  holds  the  world  together,  and  into 
unison  with  all  mankind  as  it  ought  to  be  in  His  Kingdom. 
Worship  readjusts  us.  The  more  mixed  the  congregation  of 
which  we  are  a  part,  the  more  representative  it  be  of  childhood, 
youth  and  age,  of  divers  callings,  circumstances  and  conditions, 
of  varied  races  and  nationalities  (and  here  we  in  this  country 
with  its  cosmopolitan  communities  are  singularly  favored),  the 
more  likely  is  corporate  worship  to  carry  the  individual  out  of 
himself,  and  to  adjust  him  to  God  and  to  the  whole  family  of 
his  dissimilar  brethren  in  God.  Men  see  and  flow  together  and 
their  hearts  are  enlarged.  Such  readjustment  fastens  afresh  the 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  81 

bonds  of  brotherhood,  and  ties  about  men's  conscience  the  cords 
of  responsibility.  They  are  informed  with  the  mind  of  Christ, 
bound  with  their  kind  in  the  unity  of  His  Spirit,  and  made  one 
with  the  one  God  and  Father  of  all.  Anything  short  of  this  is 
to  fail  to  worship — to  give  His  full  worth  to — God  in  Christ. 

Having  stated  these  requirements  of  public  worship,  one  may 
be  expected  to  deal  somewhat  in  detail  with  its  constituent  ele- 
ments. Preaching  is  a  chief  factor  in  giving  God  His  worth,  so 
that  preaching  is  part  of  worship ;  but  the  present  lecturer  has 
nothing  to  say  regarding  the  technique  of  preaching  to  adults, 
for  the  good  reason  that  his  eminent  predecessors  in  this  lecture- 
ship seem  to  him  to  have  said  everything  that  can  be  said  on  that 
topic.  He  would,  however,  remind  you  that  a  normal  congrega- 
tion ought  not  to  be  composed  of  adults  only,  and  that  some 
adults  are  not  adult  in  mental  capacity.  If  children  are  not  to 
stay  away  from  the  Sunday  morning  service,  as  they  often  do, 
and  confine  their  church-going  to  the  sessions  of  the  Sunday 
School,  part  of  the  worship  should  be  planned  for  their  benefit. 
It  is  as  important  that  in  corporate  worship  young  and  old  should 
be  together,  as  that  rich  and  poor  should  meet  before  the  Maker 
of  them  all.  The  elders  help  the  children  to  grow  in  wisdom,  in 
reverence,  in  responsibility;  and  the  children  do  even  more  for 
them  in  renewing  in  them  the  heart  of  a  little  child  with  which 
to  receive  and  enter  the  Kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  rarely  possible 
to  prepare  a  sermon  that  is  adequate  for  the  needs  of  grown  men 
and  women  which  children  can  understand  and  appreciate.  Much 
every  way  is  to  be  said  for  the  growing  custom  of  inserting  in 
the  morning  service  a  brief  children's  sermon.  Its  theme  ought 
never  to  be  so  trivial  that  it  has  no  message  for  the  adults  pres- 
ent; in  that  case  it  will  be  scorned  by  sensible  children.  It  ought 
to  be  picturesquely  put,  perhaps  with  an  object  that  assists  atten- 
tion by  holding  the  eye,  and  always  in  words  that  conjure  images. 
It  can  often  instruct  old  and  young  in  elementary  things  which 
the  former  have  forgot  and  the  latter  have  never  heard.  It 


82  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

can  deal  with  characters  in  the  Bible,  in  Church  history,  in  the 
records  of  missionary  heroism  or  of  social  advance,  or  with  the 
characters  of  Pilgrim's  Progress,  or  their  counterparts  in  the 
life  of  our  day — Mr.  Shitty  Shally,  Lillie  Lazybones,  the  Cock- 
sures  and  the  dwellers  in  Put-Off  Town.  It  can  tell  the  stories 
of  famous  hymns,  or  take  up  the  romantic  history  that  lies  behind 
our  English  Bible.  Like  Solomon  or  Mrs.  Gatty's  Parables  from 
Nature,  it  may  speak  of  trees,  from  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  even 
unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth  out  of  the  wall,  of  beasts,  and  of 
birds,  and  of  creeping  things,  and  of  fishes ;  and  it  may  supplement 
Solomon  with  lessons  drawn  from  the  scientific  knowledge  of 
today.  It  may  treat  of  what  we  do,  and  of  what  we  do  not  do, 
in  the  house  of  God — and  formalism  is  prevented  where  every  act 
is  shown  to  have  a  purpose.  It  may  apply  current  events,  or  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  city  streets,  or  the  observed  doings  and  mis- 
doings of  living  boys  and  girls,  or  the  signal  code  of  ships,  or  for 
that  matter  anything  under  the  sun,  to  the  life  of  the  children 
of  men  with  one  another  in  God.  It  will  not  only  make  boys  and 
girls  feel  that  they  belong  in  the  congregation — a  most  effective 
means  of  incorporating  them  into  the  Body  of  Christ — but  it  will 
be  within  the  grasp  of  grown-ups  of  the  simpler  sort,  and  assure 
them  of  a  message  that  day ;  and  it  will  rest  the  minds  and  delight 
the  fancies  of  robuster  thinkers,  whose  intellectual  doors  give  as 
ready  a  welcome  as  those  of  the  lowly  to  truth  embodied  in  a  tale. 
It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether  young  or  old  are  more  profited 
by  such  preaching,  when  it  is  painstakingly  prepared  and  artisti- 
cally done. 

With  regard  to  the  element  of  praise,  we  must  remind  ourselves 
that  the  hymnal  is  a  storehouse  of  religious  experience  to  be 
skilfully  employed  to  reproduce  similar  experiences  of  God.  It 
comes  next  only  to  the  Bible  in  this  regard,  and  deserves  careful 
study.  Almost  all  existing  collections  should  be  gone  over  by  a 
minister  to  place  the  bad  poetry,  bad  theology  and  bad  religion 
in  them  on  an  index  expurgatorius  of  hymns  that  should  not  be 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  83 

sung,  and  to  cull  tunes  that  are  unsingable  by  his  people  and, 
perhaps,  ought  not  to  be  sung  by  any  devout  people.  There  are 
enough  hymns  and  tunes  of  solid  worth  to  supply  the  reasonable 
needs  of  any  congregation.  To  be  sure  tastes  and  capacities  dif- 
fer, and  an  inclusive  church  of  any  size  may  well  find  use  for  sev- 
eral different  types  of  praise  in  its  various  meetings,  but  all  its 
hymns  ought  to  be  religiously  healthy.  Music  must  be  measured 
not  by  a  purely  aesthetic  standard,  but  by  its  religious  effects ; 
and  we  cannot  forget  the  words  Kipling  has  put  on  the  strings  of 
his  banjo: 

And  the  tunes  that  mean  so  much  to  you  alone — 

Common  tunes  that  make  you  choke  and  blow  your  nose, 

Vulgar  tunes  that  bring  the  laugh  that  brings  the  groan — 
I  can  rip  your  very  heartstrings  out  with  those. 

A  minister  should  steadily  increase  his  congregation's  repertory 
of  hymns  until  three  or  four  hundred  at  least  are  in  annual  use. 
He  should  note  in  the  hymnal  he  keeps  in  his  study  the  date  when 
each  hymn  is  sung,  to  guard  himself  from  too  constant  employ- 
ment of  his  favorites,  and  to  help  him  to  extend  the  range  of  the 
religious  experience  of  his  people.  Most  congregations  can  also 
learn  a  limited  number  of  chants,  and  if  one  is  employed  at  a  serv- 
ice, and  eight  or  ten  sung  every  month,  they  become  familiar  with- 
out growing  stale.  Hearty  congregational  singing  fuses  a  com- 
pany of  worshippers  as  almost  nothing  else.  Such  singing  is  best 
led  by  a  chorus  choir,  and  most  poorly  led  by  a  quartette.  Choir 
music  ought  to  be  used  sparingly  in  most  congregations,  where 
really  good  voices  are  not  often  secured,  and  the  majority  of 
people  worship  more  truly  when  joining  than  when  listening,  save 
in  those  rare  instances  where  the  selection  and  its  rendering  move 
and  lift  them.  The  main  duty  of  every  choir  is  to  lead  the  sing- 
ing of  the  whole  congregation;  organist  and  singers  fail  when 
any  of  the  worshippers  present  are  not  drawn  out  of  themselves 
sufficiently  to  be  sharing  in  thought,  heart,  and  with  as  much 
voice  as  they  can,  in  the  common  praise. 


84  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

It  is  with  regard  to  the  element  of  public  prayer  that  most 
needs  to  be  said.  Happily  the  controversy  between  the  advocates 
of  a  liturgy  and  devotees  of  free  prayer  has  been  theoretically 
settled  by  most  of  us  with  the  admission  that  both  are  desirable; 
but  as  a  matter  of  practice  few  congregations  are  intelligently 
given  the  advantages  of  historic  prayers  and  the  free  composi- 
tions of  its  minister.  Every  minister  should  compile  a  collection 
of  the  best  prayers  from  the  liturgies  of  all  communions;  and 
should  employ  them  sufficiently  often  to  make  their  rich  phrases 
familiar,  and  not  too  often  to  rob  them  of  freshness.  Many  con- 
gregations are  helped  to  worship  by  joining  actively  in  some  of 
the  great  prayers  which  were  prepared  for  and  have  won  their 
way  to  general  use.  The  wealth  of  the  devotional  experiences  of 
Christians  of  all  communions  should  be  made  available  for  the 
members  of  every  congregation  just  as  the  best  hymns  of  all 
communions  are  to  be  found  in  every  hymnal.  One  of  the  silliest 
forms  of  petty  denominationalism  is  to  refuse  to  use  a  beautiful 
prayer  because  it  is  identified  in  people's  minds  with  the  liturgy 
of  some  other  communion ;  as  well  decline  to  sing  "Nearer,  my  God, 
to  Thee"  because  it  was  penned  by  a  Unitarian  or  "There's  a 
wideness  in  God's  mercy"  because  it  came  from  the  heart  of  a 
Roman  Catholic.  There  is  scarcely  a  church  in  our  land  whose 
worship  would  not  be  fittingly  enriched  were  part  of  the  prayers 
in  at  least  one  of  its  services  every  Sunday  drawn  from  the  grow- 
ing canon  of  the  universal  Church's  accepted  forms  of  prayer. 

And  every  minister  should  set  himself  to  acquire  with  constant 
toil  that  highest  and  most  difficult  art  of  leading  men,  women 
and  little  children  by  his  own  carefully  chosen  words  into  com- 
munion with  the  Most  High.  Effective  public  prayer  must  meet 
certain  conditions : 

First,  it  must  be  orderly.  It  cannot  be  a  farrago  of  thanks- 
giving, petition,  confession  and  intercession,  and  fulfil  the  re- 
quirements of  attention  and  intense  feeling.  A  congregation 
ought  to  know  what  is  coming  in  a  prayer,  if  they  are  to  join  in 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  85 

it  intelligently.  This  can  be  done  by  dividing  the  elements  of 
prayer  more  than  is  commonly  done  in  our  American  churches, 
so  that  invocation  and  confession  occupy  one  prayer,  thanks- 
giving a  second,  petition  and  intercession  a  third ;  or  by  marking 
the  paragraphs  in  a  single  prayer  by  a  new  address  to  Deity 
appropriate  to  the  matter  that  is  to  follow:  e.g.,  "0  Lord,  our 
God,  to  whom  belong  mercies  and  forgiveness"  naturally  intro- 
duces a  confession  of  sin,  while  "God  of  nations"  as  inevitably 
leads  to  an  intercession  either  for  our  own  country  or  for  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  An  order  assures  a  congregation  that  the 
prayers  every  Sunday  will  be  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  cover 
some  aspect  of  each  of  the  subjects  that  ought  to  be  found  in  a 
service  of  corporate  worship.  The  intercessory  prayer,  for  in- 
stance, should  include  at  least  the  world,  the  nation,  the  Church 
universal,  the  congregation's  special  needs,  those  in  trouble,  and 
a  thankful  remembrance  of  the  dead  in  Christ.  Without  order- 
liness, a  congregation,  like  Laertes  in  Hamlet,  will  justly  com- 
plain of  "maimed  rites." 

Second,  it  must  be  thoughtful.  In  no  other  composition  is  it 
so  essential  to  "load  every  rift  with  ore."  Attention  is  lost  in 
prayer  because  there  is  often  not  enough  to  think  about.  We 
must  be  as  much  on  our  guard  "against  the  stupidity  which  is  dead 
to  the  substance,"  as  we  are  against  "the  vulgarity  which  is  dead 
to  the  form"  (to  borrow  a  phrase  of  Walter  Pater's).  A  whole 
Christian  ideal  ought  to  be  packed  into  every  petition  and  inter- 
cession. All  repetitions  and  superfluous  words  should  be  excised. 
Into  the  brief  minutes  of  public  prayer  a  wealth  of  thought 
should  be  condensed  that  worshippers  may  have  enough  of  the 
whole  range  of  their  lives  in  which  to  meet  God  and  to  be  made 
at  one  with  Him. 

Third,  it  must  be  concrete.  "Bless  our  country,"  means  little 
by  its  generality :  "bless  our  land  with  honorable  industry,  sound 
learning  and  pure  manners,"  sets  forth  a  national  aspiration. 
"Make  us  open-minded"  is  not  as  good  as  "Keep  us  from  narrow 


86  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

pride  in  outgrown  ways,  blind  eyes  that  will  not  see  the  good  of 
change,  impatient  judgments  of  the  methods  and  experiments 
of  others."  To  say,  "We  confess  sins  of  speech"  is  not  so  stimu- 
lating to  penitence  as  to  say,  "We  find  it  easier  to  speak  ill  than 
well  of  others."  "Those  in  trouble"  is  not  definite  enough  to  evoke 
sympathy:  while  such  phrases  as  "those  who  have  lost  the  light 
of  reason,  those  whose  beloved  give  them  pain,  those  whom  man's 
harshness  robs  of  faith  in  Thy  tenderness,"  touch  the  heart.  The 
more  explicit  the  description  the  better,  provided  we  keep  within 
the  circle  of  needs  and  desires  that  are  common  to  a  worshipping 
company.  We  are  not  to  seek  novel  subjects  in  prayer;  the 
wants  of  the  soul  are  the  most  ancient  commonplaces;  but  we 
have  to  phrase  the  obvious  arrestingly.  Specific  and  picturesque 
language  grips  mind  and  heart. 

Fourth,  it  must  supply  variety.  The  chief  argument  for  free 
prayer  as  against  a  fixed  form  is  that  the  latter  becomes  hack- 
neyed. Unfortunately  many  ministers  fall  into  forms  equally 
conventional  and  stereotyped,  and  forms  much  poorer  and  less 
beautiful  than  those  in  the  liturgies.  To  insure  variety  in  thought 
it  is  a  good  thing  in  preparing  the  prayers  to  run  over  the  per- 
sons in  one's  congregation  one  has  met  during  the  week,  to  list 
the  blessings  for  which  they  should  be  thankful,  the  faults,  fol- 
lies and  failures  of  which  they  should  repent,  the  advances  in  char- 
acter they  ought  to  covet.  A  faithful  pastor  has  an  almost  end- 
less supply  of  vital  matters  of  this  sort  in  his  mind  and  on  his 
heart;  let  him  phrase  a  dozen  of  them  aptly,  and  variety  from 
week  to  week  is  assured.  It  is  good  to  list  topics  for  prayer — 
topics  personal  and  social — and  deal  with  a  few  each  Sunday 
in  their  appropriate  place  in  the  order  of  service :  the  industries  of 
the  community,  the  schools,  the  recreations,  the  government, 
the  institutions  of  mercy  and  correction,  the  Church's  work  in 
its  many  phases  at  home  and  abroad,  the  families  of  the  con- 
gregation, will  each  supply  a  fairly  long  number  of  such  topics ; 
and  one  does  not  go  over  the  cities  of  Israel,  the  collective  life  of 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  87 

men,  in  this  way  before  he  finds  the  Son  of  man  coming  with  new 
disclosures  of  iniquities  that  plead  for  pardon,  of  blessings  that 
ought  not  to  be  forgot,  and  of  needs  that  cry  aloud  to  be  brought 
to  God  for  His  filling.  It  is  good  to  follow  the  main  outlines  of 
the  Church  Year — Christmas,  Holy  Week,  Easter,  Ascension- 
tide, Pentecost,  Trinity  Sunday,  and  the  seasons  of  Advent  and 
Lent — and  let  their  appropriate  themes  fill  prayer  as  well  as 
praise  and  sermon;  and  good  to  supplement  the  Church  Year 
with  festivals  of  patriotism  at  Thanksgiving  and  Independence 
Day,  of  the  solemn  passing  of  the  year,  of  seed-time  and  harvest 
with  their  reminders  of  our  dependence  and  consequent  obliga- 
tion to  share  God's  gifts  as  brethren,  of  the  beginning  and  close 
of  the  school  and  college  year,  and  the  festivals  of  labor,  which 
may  well  be  varied  to  hallow  the  various  callings  represented  in 
a  community.  It  is  good  to  avail  one's  self  of  the  volumes  of 
prayers,  of  devotional  services,  and  of  materials  for  prayer  that 
have  been  published.  With  the  freedom  from  rigid  forms  pos- 
sessed by  our  non-liturgical  churches,  it  is  lamentable  that  we 
make  so  few  permanent  contributions  to  the  devotional  services 
of  the  Church  universal.  We  ought  to  be  assisting  our  brethren 
in  the  liturgical  communions  who  are  pleading  for  greater  variety 
in  their  worship,  by  enriching  them  with  prayers  as  fittingly 
phrased  as  their  own  and  covering  many  moods  and  themes  theirs 
do  not  touch.  It  is  good  to  make  a  collection  of  phrases  from 
the  English  Bible,  and  from  other  devotional  classics,  and  to 
cull  from  this  abounding  store  week  by  week  an  unworn  way  of 
phrasing  an  old  longing ;  good  to  employ  varied  characterizations 
of  God  in  addressing  Him,  instead  of  allowing  one's  self  to  be- 
come confined  to  two  or  three  tiresomely  repeated  names;  for 
there  is  no  more  important  matter  in  prayer  than  setting  God  in 
His  richness  ever  before  those  who  seek  His  face;  good  to  recall 
how  wealthy  our  English  tongue  is,  and  to  ransack  its  treasures 
to  keep  the  language  in  which  we  voice  men's  cravings  Jresh 
enough  to  compel  interest  and  quicken  feeling.  If  we  conserve 


88  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  familiar  in  historic  prayers  which  have  worn  well  for  gen- 
erations and  cannot  be  bettered  in  form  and  content,  we  must 
provide  freshness  in  the  prayers  of  our  own  composition. 

It  is  superfluous  to  add  that  the  most  careful  preparation  of 
the  prayers  is  essential.  Men  prepare  differently ;  but  to  protect 
our  congregations  against  poverty  of  thought  and  slipshod  lan- 
guage ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  us  ministers  ought  to  write 
out  at  least  one,  and  better  still  several,  of  the  prayers  every 
week.  The  habit  of  constantly  writing  prayers,  whether  one 
reads  them,  or  commits  them  to  memory,  or  lets  them  form  the 
background  of  the  prayer  in  which  he  leads  from  the  pulpit,  is 
the  surest  form  of  training.  "The  faculty  and  facility  of  ex- 
temporary prayer"  is,  as  Fuller  said,  "the  easy  act  of  a  labo- 
rious habit."  The  language  of  public  prayer  ought  generally 
to  be  confined  to  the  vocabulary  used  by  the  translators  of  the 
Bible — a  copious  well  of  English  suited  to  religious  speech.  More 
modern  words  ought  to  be  scrutinized  and  tested,  and  a  rough 
test  of  their  fitness  is  their  appropriateness  in  lyric  verse.  A 
word  which  is  out  of  place  in  a  lyric  poem  is  usually  clumsy  in 
prayer. 

But  if  we  wish  our  people  themselves  to  pray  in  corporate  wor- 
ship, we  make  a  mistake  in  confining  them  to  the  words  of  prayer 
uttered  aloud  by  the  minister  or  by  the  whole  congregation  in 
unison.  In  the  Friends'  Meeting  at  the  one  extreme  and  in  the 
Roman  Mass  at  the  other,  collective  silence  is  used  as  a  socially 
stimulated  opportunity  for  worshippers  to  frame  their  own  pray- 
ers. We  provide  for  this  in  the  Communion  Service,  and  probably 
we  ought  to  make  further  provision.  Those  of  us  who  attended 
the  World's  Missionary  Conference  at  Edinburgh  in  1910,  were 
much  impressed  with  devotional  services  in  which  the  leader  sug- 
gested the  acts  of  prayer :  "Let  us  confess  the  sins  of  the  Church 
in" — ,  and  then  came  a  series  of  concrete  specifications  of  fail- 
ure, ^allowing  a  silence  to  follow  each  sentence  in  which  that 
great  company  thoughtfully,  and  with  personal  pointedness  and 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  89 

poignancy,  phrased  the  sin  as  each  was  aware  of  it.  Similarly 
acts  of  thanksgiving,  of  intercession,  of  personal  petition,  of 
lowly  adoration  of  God,  were  suggested.  At  times  audible  par- 
ticipation was  made  possible  by  the  leader's  using  a  versicle,  such 
as  "Hear  us,  O  Lord  from  heaven,"  to  which  the  congregation 
gave  the  response,  "And  when  Thou  hearest,  forgive;"  or  by  his 
repetition  of  a  phrase  such  as  "Thanks  be  unto  Thee,  O  God," 
or  "We  beseech  Thee  to  hear  us,  good  Lord,"  which  the  company 
caught  up  and  used  to  express  their  united  feeling.  Such  a  care- 
fully prepared  and  skilfully  led  service  would  restore  genuine 
prayer  to  many  a  so-called  prayer-meeting,  where  those  present 
often  do  everything  but  pray.  And  in  the  regular  worship  on 
Sunday  there  may  well  be  a  pause  in  at  least  one  of  the  prayers, 
during  which  worshippers,  enlarged  and  upborne  by  the  corporate 
approach  to  God,  may  pray  each  for  himself.  For  instance,  In 
the  intercession  for  those  in  special  need,  the  minister  may  say: 
"We  lay  before  Thee  those  severally  known  to  us  this  day  in  pain, 
sorrow,  indifference,  doubt  or  open  sin,  naming  them  one  by  one 
in  our  hearts  before  Thee" — and  then  wait  for  a  full  minute  that 
each  may  present  those  he  bears  on  his  thought  in  that  uplifting 
stillness.  The  element,  too,  of  adoration — the  conscious  setting 
of  the  Most  High  before  the  eyes  of  the  heart  and  giving  Him 
worship — worth-ship — requires  sufficient  silence  to  allow  the  imag- 
ination to  paint  its  picture  of  God,  and  sufficient  suggestion 
through  speech  to  furnish  appropriate  materials  for  the  imagina- 
tion to  work  with,  and  then  further  silence  while  the  soul  bows 
before,  rejoices  in,  and  covenants  with  Him. 

In  arranging  the  order  of  worship  at  its  various  services,  the 
church  must  consider  those  for  whom  each  is  particularly  de- 
signed. It  is  a  poor  plan  to  provide  two  similar  services  for  the 
same  people  on  the  same  day ;  it  is  a  question  whether  there  ought 
not  to  be  more  variety  in  the  arrangement  of  the  same  service  from 
Sunday  to  Sunday  than  is  usual.  One  would  like  to  see  a  church 
edifice  opened  for  several  different  kinds  of  worship  on  a  Sunday 


90  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

and  throughout  the  week,  to  meet  the  various  temperaments  and 
tastes  of  its  community.  There  should  be  services  of  propaganda 
and  of  teaching,  where  the  element  of  devotion  is  at  a  minimum; 
and  there  should  be  devotional  services  where  preaching  is  omitted 
or  occupies  but  a  brief  part  of  the  time.  There  should  be  a  serv- 
ice with  considerable  ritual  and  symbol,  and  a  service  of  the 
utmost  informality.  The  more  catholic  the  individual  church,  the 
less  need  for  denominational  subdivisions  to  answer  the  desires 
or  fit  in  with  the  traditions  of  particular  groups.  Churches  that 
loudly  proclaim  their  freedom  in  matters  of  ritual  often  show 
themselves  most  narrowly  rigid  in  offering  the  community  but  one 
type  of  worship ;  and  when  their  neighborhood  fills  up  with  people 
of  other  antecedents,  they  make  no  effort  to  adapt  themselves 
to  their  wants,  and  fairly  invite  the  organization  of  churches  of 
other  communions.  Ministers  ought  to  be  trained  to  conduct 
worship  of  various  types ;  we  ought  to  be  skilled  in  symbolic  wor- 
ship, in  the  use  of  a  liturgy,  in  the  leadership  of  a  dignified  and 
beautiful  service  of  free  prayer,  in  the  direction  of  a  service  in 
which  the  worshippers  frame  their  own  petitions  under  sugges- 
tion, in  the  guidance  of  most  informal  meetings  in  which  those 
present  freely  participate.  If  a  church  is  to  be  socially  compre- 
hensive, it  must  display  great  flexibility  in  adapting  its  worship 
to  many  sorts  of  persons. 

There  are  nine  and  sixty  ways  of  constructing  tribal  lays 
And  every  single  one  of  them  is  right. 

There  are  seventy  times  seven  methods  of  arranging  corporate 
worship — all  of  them  justified  to  the  degree  that  they  enable  God 
to  enter  more  fully  His  children's  lives  and  build  through  them 
His  Kingdom  in  the  world;  and  each  church  ought  to  seek  to 
supply  at  least  seven  of  them  to  the  community  it  serves.  Scien- 
tific agriculturists  tell  us  that  certain  soils  need  to  be  impreg- 
nated with  a  particular  bacillus  before  they  will  produce  some 
crops.  It  will  not  do  to  spring  novel  methods  of  worship  upon 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  WORSHIP  91 

a  congregation ;  its  forms  must  grow  out  of  its  traditions ;  but 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  impregnating  the  soil  and  fitting  it  for 
other,  and  perhaps  richer,  harvests  of  fellowship  with  God. 

Since  the  beginning  the  Church  has  found  the  climax  of  its 
worship  in  a  symbol — the  Lord's  Supper.  The  Christian  cen- 
turies have  given  this  sacrament  various  interpretations  in  accord 
with  current  views  of  Christ's  saving  work  and  His  followers' 
life  with  Him ;  but  the  symbol  itself  links  the  differently  thinking 
generations,  and  lends  itself  most  suitably  to  the  social  con- 
ception of  communion  with  God  prevalent  today.  It  is  a  symbol 
which  carries  us  back  to  a  time  before  there  was  a  written  gos- 
pel, or  a  creed,  or  a  ritual,  or  a  polity;  which  carries  us  back  to 
the  Upper  Room  and  the  first  circle  of  disciples;  and  which  has 
been  observed  through  all  the  succeeding  ages — a  sacrament  of 
the  continuity  of  the  Church  throughout  its  changing  history. 
It  is  a  symbol  in  use  in  almost  every  part  of  the  Church  today, 
and  even  where  the  elements  of  bread  and  wine  are  not  employed 
(as  among  the  Friends),  they  remain  as  metaphors  of  speech  for 
communion — a  sacrament  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  throughout 
the  earth.  It  is  a  symbol  which  looks  forward  "until  He  come," 
and  the  Great  Community  is  a  fact.  In  itself  the  symbol  is  social — 
a  company  of  friends  of  Christ,  breaking  bread  and  sharing  a 
cup  in  fellowship  with  their  unseen  Lord  and  with  one  another 
in  Him.  One  disciple  alone  cannot  keep  the  Lord's  Supper,  and 
fellow-communicants  are  as  truly  sacramental  as  the  elements 
on  the  Table — the  faith  and  love  of  each  strengthen  those  of  all. 
It  is  the  symbol  of  a  shared  life — the  Self-offering  of  Christ  ap- 
propriated by  believers  as  their  sufficient  strength  and  their  rea- 
sonable service:  "Take  this,  and  divide  it  among  yourselves." 
From  the  first  it  has  been  a  symbol  of  the  corporate  oneness  of 
the  Church:  "We,  who  are  many,  are  one  bread,  one  body;  for 
we  all  partake  of  the  one  bread."  "Let  no  man  having  a  dispute 
with  his  fellow  meet  with  you,"  says  the  Didache;  and  its  two 
Eucharistic  prayers  plead  that  the  Church  may  be  gathered  to- 


92  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

gether  and  become  one.  Underneath  the  differences  of  interpre- 
tation, the  symbol  speaks  to  all  of  the  central  place  of  Jesus 
Himself  in  the  Christian  faith,  of  the  dependence  of  all  Christians 
upon  Him  for  their  life  with  God,  and  of  their  possession  of  God's 
life  in  the  measure  of  their  fellowship  with  one  another.  No  rite 
more  fitly  enables  us  to  worship  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus 
Christ — to  give  Him  His  worth  as  the  supply  of  all  His  children's 
needs,  according  as  they  form,  in  the  Church,  in  nations,  in  indus- 
try, a  believing  and  friendly  commonwealth  of  His  sons  and 
daughters. 

When  Jerusalem  lay  in  ruins,  Jeshua  and  Zerubbabel  and  those 
who  had  the  vision  of  the  restored  temple  in  their  hearts,  began 
by  setting  in  place  the  altar  and  offering  the  burnt-offering,  al- 
though "the  foundation  of  the  temple  of  the  Lord  was  not  yet 
laid."  In  our  wrecked,  or  rather  never-yet-built,  city  of  God 
we  dream  of  a  temple — the  renewed  and  reunited  Church  of 
Christ,  hallowing  with  its  ministries  the  whole  city.  But  while 
the  temple  is  still  a  vision  only,  we  can  at  once  set  in  place  the 
altar — the  table  of  fellowship  with  its  symbols  of  a  Life  offered 
up  for  us  and  given  to  us,  and  of  our  offering  of  ourselves  a  liv- 
ing sacrifice.  The  altar  in  Jerusalem  was  the  promise  of  the 
completed  temple  and  the  restored  city.  The  sacrificial  fellow- 
ship of  the  Table  of  the  Lord  is  the  earnest  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  which  is  to  be,  until  its  ministry  shall  have  fully  glorified 
the  city  of  God  with  the  light  of  the  Lamb. 


LECTURE  V 
THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING 

A  COLLEAGUE  of  mine  said  not  long  ago :  "I  am  afraid  this  is  not 
the  time  for  an  Ecclesia  docens.  How  rarely  does  one  receive 
instruction  in  a  modern  church!"  There  could  hardly  be  a  more 
damaging  criticism  of  current  preaching.  The  Gospel  of  Christ 
has  a  distinctive  conception  of  God  and  calls  for  an  equally  dis- 
tinctive life  in  men  and  in  communities.  We  cannot  assume  that 
what  man  is  to  believe  concerning  God  and  what  duty  God  re- 
quires of  man  under  present  circumstances  are  understood.  The 
world  struggle  is  a  patent  proof  that  nominally  Christian  people 
have  confused  notions  who  God  is  and  what  He  asks  of  His  chil- 
dren. "My  people  are  destroyed  for  lack  of  knowledge."  The 
economic  and  nationalistic  rivalries  which  brought  on  the  catas- 
trophe were  largely  led  and  widely  approved  by  men  who  con- 
sidered themselves  followers  of  Jesus,  and  had  little  idea  that  He, 
to  whom  they  professed  allegiance,  had  principles  which  demanded 
specific  courses  in  these  spheres  of  life.  The  Church,  their  pre- 
sumed teacher,  must  bear  the  blame  for  leaving  them  in  igno- 
rance. Her  constant  prayer  and  effort  must  be,  like  St.  Paul's, 
that  her  people's  love  "may  abound  yet  more  and  more  in  knowl- 
edge and  all  discernment,  so  that  they  may  distinguish  the  things 
that  are  morally  different."  There  is  scarcely  a  word  in  the 
common  religious  and  ethical  vocabulary  which  does  not  need, 
like  a  worn  coin,  to  be  called  in,  reminted,  and  put  into  circula- 
tion with  the  clear  image  and  superscription  of  Jesus  Christ. 

And  besides  the  widespread  use  of  religious  words  in  a  sub- 


94  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Christian  sense,  we  have  to  face  the  fact  that  generally  men 
breathe  a  godless  atmosphere  and  that  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  life's 
interests  are  thought  of  by  supposedly  Christian  people  with  no 
reference  to  Christ.  Religion  is  connected  with  a  limited  range 
of  family  and  personal  concerns,  while  topics  of  government, 
industry,  commerce,  medicine,  art,  science,  are  discussed  on  a 
frankly  atheistic  assumption.  Speaking  of  his  editorial  expe- 
rience, Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  said:  "I  never  wanted  articles  on 
religious  subjects  half  so  much  as  articles  on  common  subjects, 
written  with  a  decidedly  Christian  tone,"  and  it  is  that  tone  which 
is  lacking.  Theoretically  the  line  between  the  sacred  and  secular 
was  wiped  out  a  generation  or  more  ago ;  practically  in  the  minds 
of  the  members  of  the  Church  by  far  the  larger  area  of  life  re- 
mains unrelated  with  God.  We  have  often  been  deservedly  rebuked 
for  failure  to  fulfil  the  first  item  in  the  Great  Commission — 
preaching  the  Gospel  to  every  creature;  we  have  been  even  more 
remiss  in  another  article  of  that  same  Commission — teaching 
those  who  accept  the  Evangel  to  observe  Christ's  will  and  show- 
ing them  specifically  what  it  involves  in  the  circumstances  of 
contemporary  life. 

For  example,  there  seems  to  have  been  hardly  any  object  to 
which  Jesus  devoted  more  attention  than  to  training  His  follow- 
ers to  trust  God.  Again  and  again  He  insists  upon  that  faith 
which  brings  quietness  and  confidence.  But  how  rarely  serenity 
characterizes  a  modern  Christian!  Look  at  a  congregation  who 
have  grown  up  from  earliest  childhood  under  the  Church's  influ- 
ence, and  who  were  willing  to  learn  what  she  had  to  teach;  and 
one  would  expect  faces  like  that  of  Abou  Ben  Adhem's  angel, 
with  "a  look  made  of  all  sweet  accord."  But  in  fact  they  are 
not  likely  to  be  noticeably  calmer  than  those  of  a  group  of  world- 
lings. No  doubt  they  assent  to  the  teaching:  "Fear  not,  only  be- 
lieve ;"  they  say,  "I  know  I  ought  not  to  worry ;"  but  the  Church 
has  not  set  herself  seriously  to  train  them  from  earliest  infancy, 
as  Jesus  tried  to  train  His  disciples  from  the  first  day  they  met 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  95 

Him,  so  to  connect  the  living  God,  their  Father,  with  every  situa- 
tion in  which  they  find  themselves  that  fearfulness  disappears  and 
they  abide  in  His  love.  Our  churches  are  full  of  easily  scared 
persons,  with  the  usual  large  stock  of  ordinary  human  anxieties, 
which  they  do  not  handle  any  more  successfully  than  other  mor- 
tals, and  often  with  even  more  apprehensions  of  the  movements 
of  the  world's  thought  or  of  its  varied  happenings.  Their  Lord 
would  ask  them:  "Why  are  ye  fearful?  have  ye  not  yet  faith?" 
And  they  might  reply :  "Yea,  Lord,  we  believe ;  but  we  were  never 
taught  not  to  be  afraid  of  Ajjpse  things,  never  told  that  these 
winds  and  waves  were  under  our  Father's  control."  The  Church 
is  not  ready  for  her  part  in  an  era  of  social  rebuilding  until  her 
members  have  learned  to  be  so  continuously  aware  of  God,  their 
refuge  and  strength,  a  very  present  help,  that  they  say:  "There- 
fore will  we  not  fear,  though  the  earth  do  change." 

We  need  to  insist  that  Christian  faith  is  never  passive  sub- 
mission in  ungodlike  physical  conditions  or  social  adjustments, 
but  an  aggressive  conqueror,  confidently  assuming  that  the  brute 
creation  and  the  warring  world  of  man  can  be  reshaped  to  dis- 
close love — an  overcoming  faith.  And  we  need  also  to  recall  that 
there  will  still  be  a  large  remainder  beyond  man's  knowledge  and 
power — the  forces  of  the  universe  he  is  as  yet  unable  to  subdue, 
the  sickness  and  frailty  he  cannot  master,  the  accident  his  fore- 
sight fails  to  forestall,  the  wills  of  others  he  knows  not  how  to 
control — and  that  in  this  apparently  hostile  territory  there  is  a 
faith  which,  when  a  man's  strength  and  skill  are  overcome,  still 
brings  victory — faith  in  the  one  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  of 
whom  and  through  whom  and  unto  whom  are  all  things,  which 
gives  confidence  in  the  darkness,  with  the  unpreventable,  in  the 
face  of  that  in  which,  however  reluctantly,  we  needs  must  ac- 
quiesce. 

Thus  God  hath  will'd 
That  man,  when  fully  skill'd 
Still  gropes  in  twilight  dim; 


96  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Encompass'd  all  his  hours 

By  fearful'st  powers 
Inflexible  to  him; 
That  so  he  may  discern 

His  feebleness, 
And  e'en  for  earth's  success 
To  Him  in  wisdom  turn, 
Who  holds  the  keys  of  either  home — 
Earth,  and  the  world  to  come. 

To  furnish  men  with  a  trustful  attitude  always  and  everywhere, 
a  mastering  faith  that  subdues  to  the  Christian  purpose  what- 
ever seems  to  oppose  it,  a  faith  still  victoriously  sure  of  God's 
triumph  when  the  opposition  is  insuperable, — this  is  the  funda- 
mental aim  of  our  ministry  of  teaching.  "To  have  a  God  is  to 
trust  Him." 

Such  a  faith  connects  itself  immediately  with  the  rebuilding  of 
our  shattered  world  into  a  world  that  will  hold  together.  There  is 
a  widespread  opinion  that  this  is  impossible  because  of  the  very 
structure  of  the  universe  in  which  conflict  is  inherent.  In  the  first 
year  of  the  War,  a  young  Harvard  alumnus,  who  enlisted  in  the 
Foreign  Legion  of  the  French  Army,  and  lost  his  life  in  the  as- 
sault upon  Beloy-en-Santerre,  wrote  in  a  letter:  "Standing  fac- 
ing the  silent  and  uncertain  lines  of  the  enemy's  trenches  from 
his  ramparts,  the  sentinel  has  ample  time  for  reflection.  Alone 
under  the  stars,  war  in  its  cosmic  rather  than  its  moral  aspect 
reveals  itself  to  him.  Regarded  from  this  more  abstract  plane 
the  question  of  right  and  wrong  disappears.  Peoples  war  because 
strife  is  the  law  of  nature  and  force  the  ultimate  arbitrament 
among  humanity  no  less  than  in  the  rest  of  the  universe.  He  thrills 
with  the  sense  of  filling  an  appointed  necessary  place  in  the  conflict 
of  hosts,  and  facing  the  enemy's  crest  above  which  the  Great 
Bear  wheels  upward  to  the  zenith,  he  feels,  with  a  sublimity  of 
enthusiasm  that  he  has  never  before  known,  a  kind  of  companion- 
ship with  the  stars."  There  is  religious  feeling  in  that  utterance, 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  97 

but  it  is  an  antichristian  faith.  Strife  may  seem  at  present  a 
law  of  nature  in  men  and  stars,  but  to  the  Christian  it  cannot 
be  unalterably  so;  nor  is  companionship  with  warring  cosmic 
forces  fellowship  with  God. 

"The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together 
until  now."  Men  battling  in  air  and  sea  and  land,  and  struggling 
together  in  the  hardly  less  fierce  contests  of  the  industrial  order, 
are  one  with  fighting  myriads  of  germs  in  every  organism  and 
with  the  destructive  earthquakes,  storms,  frost  and  wind  of  the 
inanimate  world.  But  "the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creation 
waiteth  for  the  revealing  of  the  sons  of  God."  Redeemed  men 
are  to  redeem  the  brute  creation.  Nature  is  not  fixed  but  plastic. 
What  is  natural  in  stars  or  men  today  may  not  be  in  their  natures 
tomorrow.  Nothing  abideth  forever  that  is  discordant  with  the 
will  of  God,  and  that  will  is  seen  in  Christ.  The  "nature"  of 
stars  or  of  humans  is  not  that  which  they  are  at  present,  but 
that  which  they  may  become  when  they  receive  requisite  divine 
inspirations.  In  the  story  of  Eden  earth  is  pictured  as  barren, 
because  "Jehovah  God  had  not  caused  it  to  rain,  and  there  was 
not  a  man  to  till  the  ground."  Eden  might  have  been  termed  a 
natural  desert,  while  its  real  nature  was  to  become  a  garden  of 
the  Lord.  There  are  many  sections  of  the  inanimate  world  un- 
touched as  yet  by  human  science  and  art,  and  many  areas  of 
human  life  unwatered  by  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  which  resemble  the 
desolation  where  later  stood  the  paradise  of  God.  "The  creation 
itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  into 
the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God."  The  New  Testa- 
ment's first  concern  is  to  produce  sons  of  God :  the  Seventh  Chap- 
ter of  Romans,  with  its  account  of  the  inner  strife  and  the  victory 
through  Christ,  precedes  the  Eighth  Chapter,  with  its  hope  of  a 
redeemed  creation.  "Human  nature,"  which  is  commonly  credited 
with  all  unideal  qualities,  and  is  cited  as  the  effectual  barrier  to 
desired  progress,  is  to  be  looked  at  in  the  Man  Christ  Jesus ; 
every  human  being  and  every  human  group — families,  industries, 


98  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

nations — is  to  be  considered  subhuman  until  its  "nature"  accords 
with  His.  We  have  to  teach  Christ  as  Redeemer,  and  show  how 
under  His  control  the  inward  strife  issues  in  triumphant  concord 
and  the  maladjustments  of  men  with  each  other  become  an  ordered 
harmony. 

The  sons  of  God  are  to  answer  the  longing  of  the  creation  still 
in  the  pangs  of  birth.  On  the  first  pages  of  the  Bible  man  is  told 
to  subdue  the  earth  and  have  dominion  over  every  living  thing. 
In  the  Gospels  the  Son  of  man  assumes  a  subduer's  position 
towards  the  creation.  Whatever  interpretation  one  may  give  to 
the  narratives  of  miracles,  Jesus  impressed  His  contemporaries 
as  mastering  deranged  minds,  diseased  bodies,  dangerous  waves, 
deficient  food  supplies,  and  bringing  sanity,  vigor,  calm  seas  and 
enough  and  to  spare  for  hungry  people.  We  are  to  teach  that 
as  sons  of  the  Most  High  it  is  ours  to  refashion  nature  in  man 
and  stars,  to  find  no  comradeship  with  its  strife,  but  satisfaction 
in  its  subjugation  to  the  purpose  of  its  Lord.  "Instead  of  the 
thorn  shall  come  up  the  fir-tree;  and  instead  of  the  brier  shall 
come  up  the  myrtle-tree."  Man's  ability  to  understand  and  rule 
is  the  faith  which  underlies  all  science  and  all  art;  but  his  knowl- 
edge and  control  may  render  his  brethren  fiends,  and  lower  the 
lower  creation.  The  brutalities  of  these  unspeakable  years,  and 
the  deadly  use  of  nature's  forces  to  achieve  them,  are  only  too 
evident.  But  human  responsibility  under  God  for  the  cosmos  is 
brought  home  to  our  consciences. 

Yea,  the  rough  rock,  the  dull  earth,  the  wild  sea's  furying  waters, 

All  with  ineffable  longing  are  waiting  their  invader, 

Still  when  resisting  and  raging,  in  soft  undervoice  say  unto  him, 

Fear  not,  retire  not,  O  Man ;  hope  evermore  and  believe. 

Go  from  the  east  to  the  west,  as  the  sun  and  the  stars  direct  thee, 

Go  with  the  girdle  of  man,  go  and  encompass  the  earth. 

Go  with  the  spiritual  life,  the  higher  volition  and  action. 

With  the  great  girdle  of  God,  go  and  encompass  the  earth. 

ft 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  99 

A  creation  so  girt  with  the  cords  of  love  will  no  longer  be  a  strug- 
gling chaos,  but  ordered  by  the  peace  of  Christ.  This  is  an 
essential  teaching,  and  a  teaching  not  yet  generally  grasped,  by 
a  Church  whose  members  are  to  rebuild  the  earth  into  a  dwelling- 
place  for  God  and  His  children. 

Again,  at  the  basis  of  life  lies  the  economic  question  of  the 
production,  distribution  and  use  of  wealth;  and  it  is  notorious 
how  insufficient  has  been  the  Church's  teaching  of  the  mind  of  her 
Lord  on  this  matter.  She  has  contented  herself  with  commend- 
ing industry,  thrift,  and  above  all  generosity,  which  are  virtues, 
although  not  distinctively  Christian  virtues,  and  she  has  spoken 
next  to  nothing  in  condemnation  of  the  unchristian  industrial 
system  on  which  our  present  social  structure  is  built.  A  Scottish 
theologian,  Professor  W.  P.  Paterson,  recently  said:  "During 
the  bygone  century  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  ornaments  of  the 
Christian  pulpit  did  as  much  as  lay  preachers  like  Ruskin  and 
Carlyle  to  quicken  the  social  conscience,  and  to  commend  lofty 
ideals  in  the  various  departments  of  secular  life  and  labor."  He 
wisely  adds:  "The  exhortations  to  sanctification  were  too  gen- 
eral." Our  commercial  order  stimulates  the  competitive  motive, 
holds  our  personal  gain  as  the  incentive  to  effort,  and  sanctions 
selfish  possession  as  the  reward  of  labor.  As  a  result  it  produces 
men  and  women  diametrically  opposite  in  mind  and  heart  to  Jesus 
Christ,  and  moulds  nations  after  the  pattern  of  bellicose  sons  of 
Belial.  The  Church  has  insisted  that  her  ministers  and  mission- 
aries be  actuated  by  higher  motives;  and  certain  callings,  like 
those  of  the  physician,  the  nurse,  the  teacher,  the  artist,  have  been 
lifted  to  loftier  standards;  but  industrial  workers,  shopkeepers, 
merchants,  men  of  affairs,  have  been  allowed  to  think  themselves 
disciples  of  Christ,  while  they  did  the  world's  work  with  pagan 
principles.  How  debasing  to  men  in  business,  who  must  be  the 
vast  majority  in  every  community,  to  allow  the  adjective  "com- 
mercial" to  be  a  synonym  for  low  incentives,  so  that  a  profession 
becomes  degraded  when  it  is  "commercialized."  The  unbrotherly. 


100  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

and  often  bitterly  hostile,  social  relations  in  which  industrial 
workers  and  business  men  find  themselves  most  uncomfortable  as 
sons  of  God,  are  the  inevitable  judgment  that  follows  failure  to 
order  this  large  sphere  of  life  according  to  God's  will  in  Christ. 

There  are  still  many  who  regard  the  bitter  rivalries  of  our 
commercial  world  as  "healthy  competition,"  and  view  the  fre- 
quent strikes  and  lockouts  as  inevitable  concomitants  of  a  vigor- 
ous industrial  struggle.  Their  attitude  reminds  one  of  the  sur- 
geons of  a  bygone  generation  who  expected  a  wound  to  become 
inflamed  and  dirty  with  what  they  ignorantly  termed  "laudable 
puss."  Today  wounds  are  irrigated  with  Dakin's  Solution  and 
the  healthy  tissue  repairs  itself.  We  must  discover  the  principles 
of  industrial  antisepsis ;  and  for  us,  Christians,  they  are  to  be 
found  in  the  application  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  to  commercial 
relations.  There  may  be  various  opinions  as  to  which  economic 
theory  affords  the  wisest  method  of  setting  up  a  Christian  social 
order.  We  dare  not  be  dogmatic  in  the  economic  embodiment  of 
the  mind  of  Christ  any  more  than  in  its  theological  statement. 
The  present  tendency  is  plainly  towards  democracy  in  industry, 
and  it  makes  in  the  Christian  direction.  But  it  is  not  the  form 
but  the  spirit  of  the  industrial  order  with  which  we  are  concerned ; 
we  prize  that  form  which  stimulates  most  the  ministering  spirit. 

The  Church  must  teach  men  to  hold  their  minds  open :  she  must 
save  them  from  sleek  contentment  and  smug  complacency,  and 
from  servile  acceptance  and  hopeless  submission.  They  dare  not 
be  satisfied  with  the  present  economic  situation  which  renders 
Christian  fellowship  well-nigh  impossible  even  in  the  house  of  God. 
Membership  in  the  Church  should  guarantee  a  predisposition  to 
industrial  changes,  and  a  mind  hospitable  to  plans  for  economic 
readjustment.  She  must  teach  that  cooperative  impulses  must 
supplant  the  competitive,  and  that  an  industrial  s}^stem  is  to  be 
judged  primarily  by  the  human  relations  which  it  establishes 
among  producers,  distributers  and  consumers;  that  the  will  to 
serve  must  be  substituted  for  the  will  to  gain  as  the  motive  to 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  101 

labor ;  and  that  responsible  trusteeship  of  whatever  one  controls 
for  the  benefit  of  the  family  of  mankind  is  the  only  reward  of 
effort  which  a  Christian  society  can  sanction.  She  must  bring 
home  to  men's  consciences  that  the  earth  and  the  fulness  thereof 
belong  to  God;  man's  tenure  of  any  part  of  it  is  but  for  a  brief 
span;  and  the  Father's  goods  are  the  patrimony  of  His  whole 
family  of  sons  and  daughters,  so  that  none  ought  to  be  debarred 
from  a  full  share  in  the  inheritance,  and  none  should  enjoy  more 
than  an  amount  proportionate  to  his  needs  and  to  the  service 
which  he  renders.  She  must  develop  an  elect  race,  none  of  whom 
dares  to  be  idle,  and  all  of  whom  are  scrupulously  sensitive  lest 
they  be  employing  more  of  the  family  heritage  for  themselves  and 
theirs  than  the  equivalent  they  add  to  the  family's  welfare.  She 
must  insist  that  poverty  in  an  earth  where  an  open-handed  Father 
provides  bread  enough  and  to  spare  is  a  remediable  evil,  due  to 
man's  bad  management  or  self-seeking  (to  think  otherwise  is  to 
impugn  the  goodness  or  the  competency  of  God)  ;  and  that,  while 
he  that  will  not  work  should  not  be  given  to  eat,  the  right  to 
work  at  a  return  which  enables  a  man  and  his  dependents  to  live 
as  children  of  God  is  a  debt  which  society  owes  him.  She  must 
teach  the  interdependence  of  men  in  the  industrial  body,  as  Chris- 
tians are  members  one  of  another  in  the  Body  of  Christ.  While 
some  callings  remain  peculiarly  hazardous  or  disagreeable,  and 
while  much  labor  is  mechanical  taskwork  which  dehumanizes, 
workers  in  these  occupations  must  be  accorded  special  con- 
sideration, and  assured  sufficient  leisure  and  inspirations  to 
keep  them  spiritually  alive.  "Those  parts  of  the  body  which  we 
think  to  be  less  honorable,  upon  those  we  bestow  more  abundant 
honor.  God  tempered  the  body  together,  giving  more  abundant 
honor  to  that  part  which  lacked;  that  there  should  be  no  schism 
in  the  body ;  but  that  the  members  should  have  the  same  care  one 
for  another." 

The  Church's  main  interest  is   the  production   of  character; 
and  things — their  acquisition  and  their  use,  their  loss  and  their 


102  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

lack — are  a  large  part  of  the  mechanism  which  makes  men.  She 
dare  not  be  negligent  in  teaching  them  how  to  gain  and  to  employ 
possessions  as  Christians,  and  how  under  some  circumstances  to 
do  without  them,  that  she  may  let  them  into  the  Christian  secret 
both  how  to  be  filled  and  to  be  hungry,  both  to  abound  and  to  be 
in  want.  This  is  not  to  exalt  mere  things  which  a  man  owns  or 
wants  to  undue  prominence,  in  view  of  our  Lord's  statement  that 
he  who  is  unfaithful  in  the  unrighteous  mammon  will  not  be 
trusted  with  the  true  riches.  The  Church  must  convince  her 
members  that  the  more  Christian  the  industrial  system  becomes, 
the  more  productive  it  will  be.  The  most  substantial  gains  are 
added  to  those  who  seek  first  God's  just  rule  in  the  realm  of  labor 
and  business. 

Again,  the  break-up  of  Christendom  in  the  world  war  is  a 
glaring  evidence  of  the  Church's  failure  to  teach  the  duties  of 
nations.  We  cannot  assert  that  a  particular  form  of  govern- 
ment is  alone  Christian.  St.  Paul  apparently  believed  that  the 
rulers  of  his  day  were  under  demonic  sway,  and  he  looked  forward 
to  their  ultimate  abolition ;  yet  meanwhile  he  preached  obedience  to 
the  Roman  imperialism.  Yet  we  must  judge  forms  of  govern- 
ment as  more  or  less  fitted  in  given  circumstances  to  enable  those 
who  are  under  them  to  live  as  Christians,  and  must  keep  citizens 
up  to  the  most  Christian  public  duties  existing  conditions  permit, 
and  planning  a  yet  more  Christian  expression  of  the  corporate 
life.  The  principles  of  Jesus  are  involved  in  the  administration 
of  justice  to  wrong-doers,  in  the  control  of  a  country's  resources, 
in  its  system  of  taxation ;  and  they  call  for  redemptive  discipline, 
a  fraternal  use  of  the  national  wealth,  a  distribution  of  public 
burdens  by  which  the  strong  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak. 
Political  thinkers  may  differ  widely  on  the  wisdom  or  folly  of 
specific  proposals,  and  the  leaders  of  the  Church  are  dowered 
with  no  more  knowledge  in  these  matters  than  other  men,  and 
must  not  as  ministers  of  Christ  "preach  politics,"  in  the  sense  of 
advocating  a  particular  measure  as  the  manifest  will  of  God; 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  103 

but  there  should  be  no  hesitancy  in  dealing  with  the  motives  and 
social  effects  of  any  policy.  These  must  be  in  line  with  the  pur- 
pose of  Christ. 

A  distinction  is  sometimes  drawn  between  individual  and 
national  duty.  It  is  said  that  a  man  must  love  his  neighbor  as 
himself,  but  that  a  nation  has  obligations  to  its  own  people  which 
are  prior  to  those  it  owes  the  inhabitants  of  other  lands.  But  an 
individual's  duties  lie  about  him  in  concentric  circles — duties  to 
family,  to  community,  to  nation,  to  world.  "If  any  provideth 
not  for  his  own,  and  specially  his  own  household,  he  hath  denied 
the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an  unbeliever."  A  nation's  duties 
are  no  different.  To  allow  a  country  to  take  a  course  that  would 
be  immoral  for  an  individual  is  to  demoralize  its  inhabitants.  We 
must  hold  fast  Milton's  oft-quoted  saying  that  a  nation  should  be 
"one  mighty  growth  or  stature  of  an  honest  man."  The  Biblical 
writers  personalize  nations,  and  judge  them  by  the  same  moral 
standards  they  demand  between  man  and  man.  Cavour  re- 
marked unblushingly :  "If  we  were  to  do  for  ourselves  what  we 
are  doing  for  Italy,  we  should  be  great  rogues."  It  was  that 
attitude  among  statesmen  which  led  Gladstone  to  write:  "The 
history  of  nations  is  a  melancholy  chapter;  that  is,  the  his- 
tory of  governments  is  one  of  the  most  immoral  parts  of  human 
history." 

An  immigration  act  dare  not  abrogate  the  Golden  Rule.  A 
policy  of  national  defence  cannot  be  based  upon  the  intimidating 
effect  of  superior  force  and  maintain  a  peace  of  Christ.  A  tariff 
law  must  embody  the  principle  of  mutual  service.  Within  these 
walls  a  Yale  man  may  be  pardoned  for  glorying  that  the  teach- 
ing in  economics  in  this  University  has  so  accorded  in  this  re- 
gard with  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel.  Richard  Cobden,  whom  we 
were  trained  to  revere,  said  in  one  of  his  speeches  (on  January  15, 
1846)  :  "I  see  in  the  free-trade  principle  that  which  shall  act  on 
the  moral  world  as  the  principle  of  gravitation  in  the  universe — 
drawing  men  together,  thrusting  aside  the  antagonism  of  race  and 


104  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  BEBUILDING 

creed  and  language,  and  uniting  us  in  the  bonds  of  eternal  peace. 
I  believe  that  the  desire  and  the  motive  for  large  and  mighty  em- 
pires, for  gigantic  armies  and  great  navies  will  die  away.  I  be- 
lieve that  such  things  will  cease  to  be  necessary,  or  to  be  used, 
when  man  becomes  of  one  family,  and  freely  exchanges  the  fruits 
of  his  labor  with  his  brother  man."  We,  ministers  of  Christ, 
must  Christianize  patriotism  by  teaching  our  people  that  a  na- 
tion's ambitions  should  be  for  something  other  than 

the  glory  that  was  Greece, 
And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome; — 

should  be  for  that  greatness  which  comes  in  being  servant  of  all, 
like  the  Son  of  man,  if  they  would  have  the  nation  abide  through 
the  centuries,  a  doer  of  the  will  of  God. 

The  application  of  the  principles  of  Jesus  to  industrial  and 
national  questions  raises  a  problem  on  which  the  Church's  teach- 
ing has  by  no  means  been  sufficiently  explicit — the  problem  of  the 
authority  of  Jesus.  There  are  many  who  declare  that  as  these 
matters  lay  outside  His  purview,  it  is  absurd  to  hark  back  to 
this  Galilean  Peasant  as  the  guide  for  present  social  advance. 
Within  the  Church  itself  there  is  a  diversity  of  opinion.  At 
one  extreme,  we  find  literalists,  taking  His  sayings  as  specific  com- 
mands and  attempting  to  build  them  into  a  system  of  Christian 
ethics,  as  they  have  tried  to  construct  His  utterances  of  faith  into 
a  system  of  belief.  At  the  other,  we  have  those  who  consider  His 
ethics  temporary  counsels  in  view  of  an  immediately  expected 
end  of  the  age,  and  inapplicable  as  the  principles  of  a  Christian 
commonwealth.  In  between,  are  all  manner  of  compromises  which 
stress  some  sayings  as  imperative  and  pass  over  others  as  per- 
plexing. 

Both  Paul  and  John  in  their  day  described  the  authority  of 
Jesus :  Paul  in  his  thought  of  Him  as  the  Spirit  of  social  unity, 
the  expression  of  God's  eternal  purpose,  under  whose  control  all 
things  are  to  be  summed  up;  John  when  he  records  the  saying: 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  105 

"I  am  the  light  of  the  world :  he  that  followeth  Me  shall  not  walk 
in  the  darkness,  but  shall  have  the  light  of  life."  A  purpose  is 
not  something  that  can,  in  shifting  circumstances,  be  achieved 
by  rigid  adherence  to  a  set  of  inflexible  rules.  A  light  which  one 
follows  is  continually  moving  and  illumes  the  next  few  steps 
immediately  ahead.  The  apostolic  Church  faced  many  questions 
which  had  not  confronted  Jesus ;  they  viewed  them  in  the  light 
of  His  purpose,  from  His  outlook,  with  "the  mind  of  Christ." 
We  have  similarly  to  ask  ourselves:  "What  is  the  most  Christ- 
like  course  open  to  us,  or  to  the  group  to  which  we  belong,  under 
present  conditions?"  Decisions  are  seldom  between  alternatives, 
one  of  which  is  ideally  Christian.  Think  of  the  alternatives  St. 
Paul  faced  when  he  decided  what  to  do  with  Onesimus,  the  run- 
away slave  of  Philemon.  The  follower  of  Christ  has  to  be  con- 
tent with  the  course  which  leads  in  the  Christian  direction.  What 
one  should  do  with  a  thief  who  has  broken  into  one's  house,  or 
what  a  nation  should  do  with  another  which  has  broken  into  a 
neighbor's  country,  are  not  questions  that  can  be  settled  by 
searching  the  sayings  of  Jesus  for  a  rule  that  will  fit  the  case, 
nor  by  following  a  course  which  He  took  under  other  circum- 
stances. In  Him  we  have  not  a  technique  or  method  of  doing 
righteousness,  but  a  purpose — the  establishment  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  His  Father,  a  spirit — His  spirit  of  redeeming  love;  and 
towards  this  purpose  in  this  spirit  we  must  invariably  move. 

Both  Paul  and  John  see  in  Christ  the  eternal  purpose  of  God, 
the  light  of  the  world,  the  light  of  life.  His  sayings,  His  life,  His 
cross,  His  Person  (and  all  are  of  one  piece)  take  us  in  a  definite 
direction  with  a  definite  motive.  We  may  feel  that  to  imprison 
a  thief,  or  to  war  upon  a  transgressing  nation,  are  more  Chris- 
tian under  the  circumstances  than  to  allow  them  to  sin  on  with 
impunity ;  but  imprisonment  and  war  can  never  be  Christian 
goals — features  of  a  Christian  social  order.  We  must  work  for 
a  redemptive  justice  which  immediately  surrounds  a  thief  with 
transforming  influences,  and  for  an  international  system  that 


106  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

provides  a  more  loving  mode  of  dealing  with  an  offending  nation 
than  by  butchering  its  men. 

This  definition  of  the  authority  of  Jesus  in  terms  of  purpose 
and  motive  may  seem  to  leave  us  with  insufficient  guidance.  We 
may  call  ourselves  in  a  course  that  will  by  and  by  approach  His 
standards,  while  we  advance  at  a  snail's  pace,  and  allow  an  easy 
tolerance  of  the  subchristian  on  the  ground  that  the  time  is  unripe 
for  anything  better.  The  rate  of  progress  is  not  our  concern; 
times  and  seasons  are  within  the  Father's  authority ;  and  our  God 
is  a  present  guide.  We  are  not  merely  getting  our  bearings  by 
the  general  direction  of  Christ's  purpose  in  the  past;  we  have  a 
Divine  Leader  with  us,  as  Israel  was  led  by  the  symbolic  pillar  of 
cloud  and  fire.  The  Church  has  not  succeeded  in  convincing  men 
of  God's  immediate  leadership,  so  that  they  habitually  look  for  it, 
because  she  has  not  shown  them  with  sufficient  definiteness  how 
His  leading  is  to  be  had.  Here  and  there  a  devout  soul  occasion- 
ally seeks  God's  direction,  but  almost  never  do  social  groups  col- 
lectively look  to  Him  to  be  pointed  into  His  way.  In  the  autumn 
of  1652,  on  a  day  of  humiliation  during  the  unpropitious  naval 
war  with  Holland,  John  Owen  preached  to  Parliament:  "You 
take  counsel  with  your  own  hearts.  You  advise  with  one  another — 
hearken  unto  men  under  a  repute  of  wisdom;  and  all  this  doth 
but  increase  your  trouble.  You  do  but  more  and  more  entangle 
and  disquiet  your  own  spirits.  God  stands  by  and  says,  'I  am 
wise  also,'  and  very  little  notice  is  taken  of  Him."  With  a  God 
standing  by,  it  is  not  for  us  to  delay  or  to  hasten  advance,  but 
to  receive  His  contemporary  direction. 

We  must  first  recall  the  purpose  of  Jesus  and  make  clear  to 
ourselves,  under  existing  conditions,  the  general  line  of  advance. 
This  is  to  bring  our  thinking  under  Christ's  control.  Then  we 
must  think,  and  think  carefully,  availing  ourselves  of  all  the 
light  at  hand,  for  through  it  God  is  giving  His  hints  and  sug- 
gestions. Then  we  must  wait  upon  Him.  In  social  questions  fel- 
lowship in  prayer  is  the  Christian  method  of  ascertaining  God's 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  107 

will.  "If  two  of  you  shall  agree  on  earth  as  touching  anything 
that  they  shall  ask,  it  shall  be  done  for  them  of  My  Father 
who  is  in  heaven.  For  where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together 
in  My  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them."  God's  leading  in 
social  solutions  is  found  by  collective  search.  Nations  gathered 
together  in  line  with  the  purpose  of  Christ  and  seeking  of  God 
the  means  to  ensure  their  remaining  in  Christian  fellowship;  in- 
dustrial workers  in  an  enterprise,  placing  themselves  with  a  ser- 
vant's consecration  before  the  world's  business,  and  praying  to- 
gether to  be  shown  His  will  for  their  economic  adjustments  to- 
day ; — who  that  believes  in  the  living  God  will  doubt  that  -they 
shall  receive  His  guidance? 

That  guidance  is  always  uphill.  How  can  it  be  otherwise  when 
He  seeks  to  lift  us  to  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus?  It  takes 
courage  and  strength  to  go  forward.  We  are  flung  back  on 
God  for  reinforcement.  Indeed,  God's  way  for  social  advance  is 
seldom  merely  uphill;  it  usually  faces  us  with  the  seemingly  im- 
possible, as  Israel  was  confronted  with  the  passage  of  the  Red 
Sea.  We  are  required  to  hazard  ventures.  We  cannot  foresee 
whither  social  changes  will  take  us,  nor  foretell  the  problems 
we  must  solve.  Luther  once  wrote  to  Melanchthon:  "Had  Moses 
waited  till  he  understood  how  Israel  could  elude  Pharaoh's  armies, 
they  might  have  been  in  Egypt  still."  The  Church  must  teach 
men  that  there  are  things  which  faith  can  safely  attempt  which 
unbelief  cannot:  "By  faith  they  passed  through  the  Red  Sea  as 
by  dry  land:  which  the  Egyptians  assaying  to  do  were  swallowed 
up." 

We  are  back  where  we  started,  at  the  necessity  of  clearer  teach- 
ing of  faith  in  the  adequacy  of  our  God.  We  have  not  begun  to 
tap  the  wealth  that  is  waiting  for  us  in  Him.  The  Church  is 
pitiably  unaware  of  her  own  latent  resources.  Her  sincere  mem- 
bers, for  the  most  part,  appear  to  have  been  baptized  into  some- 
thing analogous  to  John's  baptism.  They  are  marked  by  moral 
earnestness  with  little  conscious  contact  with  a  living  God.  A 


108  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Paul  would  ask  them:  "Did  ye  receive  the  Holy  Spirit  when  ye 
believed?"  Expectation  limits  experience,  as  it  did  in  the  case  of 
the  believers  at  Ephesus,  to  whom  that  question  was  first  put. 
Our  possession  of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  God  is  bounded  by 
our  lack  of  any  anticipation  of  receiving  them,  or  rather  by  our 
failure  to  appreciate  that  they  are  ours  already.  The  Church 
attempts  small  things ;  she  seems  a  company  of  spiritual  pygmies. 
Did  she  really  believe  in  the  indwelling  God  in  His  Holy  Spirit, 
she  would  plan  and  labor  and  hope  on  a  scale  commensurate  with 
power  from  on  high.  From  childhood  Christians  should  be  taught 
to  count  on  incalculable  reinforcements  whenever  they  move  in 
the  way  of  love:  "Go  ye,  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations; 
and  lo,  I  am  with  you."  The  Church  has  to  teach  explicitly  both 
what  is  to  be  done  and  Whom  we  possess  to  empower  us.  Could 
we  convince  men  that  God,  the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  at  hand, 
both  to  guide  and  to  strengthen,  there  would  be  no  disposition 
to  postpone  the  rebuilding  of  the  world  after  His  mind.  "Son  of 
man,  what  is  this  proverb  which  ye  have  in  the  land  of  Israel, 
saying,  The  days  are  prolonged,  and  every  vision  faileth?  Tell 
them,  therefore,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  Jehovah:  I  will  make  this 
proverb  to  cease,  and  they  shall  no  more  use  it  as  a  proverb  in 
Israel;  but  say  unto  them,  The  days  are  at  hand,  and  the  ful- 
filment of  every  vision." 

We  have  touched  in  sketchiest  outline  a  very  few  of  the  ele- 
ments in  the  Christian  message  on  which  explicit  teaching  is 
urgently  demanded.  The  point,  however,  is  not  so  much  that 
these  things  should  be  taught,  as  that  the  Church  should  con- 
tinually be  teaching.  A  minister  is  of  little  worth  who  is  not 
"apt  to  teach."  And  this  requires  much  more  thought  and  study 
than  is  usual  at  present  among  American  clergymen.  Much  of 
our  preaching  is  like  the  conversation  of  Dickens'  Mr.  Plornish, 
"a  little  obscure  but  conscientiously  emphatic."  The  recipe  for 
compounding  many  a  current  sermon  might  be  written :  "Take  a 
teaspoonful  of  weak  thought,  add  water,  and  serve."  The  fact 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  109 

that  it  is  frequently  served  hot,  may  enable  the  concoction  to 
warm  the  hearers,  and  make  them,  as  they  express  it,  "feel  good." 
It  may,  while  the  stimulus  lasts,  nerve  them  to  do  good;  but  it 
cannot  be  called  nourishing.  Donne  quaintly  said  that  a  pastor 
must  distribute  not  only  bread  but  quails,  "meat  of  a  stronger 
digestion."  It  is  true  that  the  average  church-goer  is  not  asking 
for  quail.  A  preacher  who  makes  his  congregation  think  will 
not  have  the  widest  popularity.  But  there  are  ways  and  ways 
of  serving  quail ;  and  it  is  a  preacher's  duty  by  thought  and  study 
to  have  meat  to  set  before  his  people,  and  to  know  how  to  serve 
it  so  that  it  whets  their  appetite.  Strong  thought  can  be  put  in 
simplest  speech.  Dr.  A.  B.  Davidson  once  remarked:  "There  is 
no  doubt  that  the  language  which  'wives  and  wabsters'  speak  is 
capable  of  expressing  everything  which  any  reasonable  man  can 
desire  to  say  to  his  fellows."  But  we  must  have  enough  to  say. 
The  Church  at  present  is  filled  with  frail  and  feeble  Christians 
who  have  not  been  fed  on  sufficiently  strong  food  to  nourish  men 
of  God.  We  ought  to  aim  to  set  a  generous  table.  Charles  Lamb 
said  that  "the  quantity  of  thought  which  Hogarth  crowds  into 
every  picture  would  alone  unvulgarize  every  subject  which  he 
might  choose."  And  Hogarth's  art  does  not  lack  in  moving 
power.  Sermons  crowded  with  thought  are  usually  those  most 
stirring.  And  the  only  preaching  to  which  people  can  really 
listen  Sunday  after  Sunday  for  years,  and  which  alters  them  and 
turns  them  into  intelligent  children  of  God,  is  that  which  is  so 
full  of  thought  that  it  keeps  them  thinking.  They  may  not 
always  agree  with  the  preacher ;  if  he  is  steadily  thinking,  and 
making  them  think,  they  certainly  will  not  always  agree  with 
him;  but  their  minds  are  set  in  motion.  And  the  only  hopeless 
congregation  is  the  mentally  dormant. 

Let  the  preacher  think  through  his  philosophy  of  life,  and 
possess  a  theology  of  his  own.  Let  him  covet  for  himself  the  lines 
which  Lily  placed  in  his  epitaph  over  Dean  Colet's  grave  in  St. 
Paul's : 


110  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Doctor  et  interpres  fidus  Evangelii 
Qui  multum  mores  hominum  sermone  diserto 
For  mar  at. 

Let  him  plan  his  sermons  in  courses,  that  he  may  systematically 
teacli  Christian  thought  and  life.  Let  him  deal  with  the  great 
convictions — with  God  in  Christ,  in  the  Bible,  in  Christians,  in  the 
world;  with  God  in  the  varied  experiences  where  He  finds  men. 
A  short  course  of  theological  sermons  ought  to  go  into  a  preach- 
er's yearly  plan.  "Strong  beliefs,"  writes  Bagehot,  "win  strong 
men,  and  then  make  them  stronger."  The  social  interpretation 
of  the  Gospel  calls  for  repeated  restatements  of  all  the  Christian 
doctrines,  that  men  may  have  a  God  whom  they  can  connect  with 
every  social  situation.  And  let  the  preacher  point  out  Christian 
duties  specifically.  A  course  in  Christian  ethics  ought  also  to  be 
included  in  one's  annual  programme.  There  is  a  bold  definite- 
ness  worthy  of  imitation  in  the  title  of  Richard  Baxter's  bulkiest 
work:  A  Christian  Directory:  or  a  Summ  of  Practical  Theology, 
and  Cases  of  Conscience,  Directing  Christians  how  to  Use  their 
Knowledge  and  Faith;  How  to  improve  all  Helps  and  Means,  and 
to  Perform  all  Duties;  How  to  overcome  Temptations,  and  to 
escape  or  mortifie  every  Sin.  In  Four  Parts:  I.  Christian  Ethicks 
(or  private  Duties).  II.  Christian  Oeconomicks  (or  Family 
Duties).  HI.  Christian  EcclesiasticJcs  (or  Church  Duties).  IV. 
Christian  Politicks  (or  Duties  to  our  Rulers  and  Neighbours). 
There  is  much  Biblical  material,  too  infrequently  used  in  the  con- 
temporary pulpit,  which  lends  itself  to  very  concrete  applica- 
tion, and  which  in  people's  minds  is  far  too  vaguely  related  with 
existing  circumstances.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments for  Christians  in  the  present  social  situation?  What 
are  Wisdom's  Ways  in  our  world,  as  Israel's  sages  saw  them  in 
theirs  and  as  Jesus  further  defined  them,  who  claimed  for  Himself 
a  place  among  Wisdom's  children?  What  do  the  ideals  of  the 
prophets  and  the  provisions  of  the  lawgivers  demand  of  us  and 
our  contemporaries  in  the  further  light  of  their  fulfilment  in 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  TEACHING  111 

Incarnate  Love?  What  do  the  sayings  of  Jesus,  and  the  ethical 
inferences  which  St.  Paul  almost  invariably  drew  from  his  Gospel, 
ask  of  us  in  all  our  relations  as  kinsmen,  workers,  friends,  citi- 
zens, churchmen?  Generalia  non  pungunt.  Let  a  preacher  treat 
each  of  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit — those  in  the  apostle's  admirable 
list,  or  a  list  of  one's  own  compilation — and  let  his  people  see 
clearly  how  these  fruits  should  look  when  gathered  in  baskets  for 
present-day  consumption. 

And  the  Church's  ministry  of  teaching  is  not  solely  or  mainly 
a  task  for  the  pulpit.  Educators  know  the  limitations  of  in- 
struction by  lectures.  The  Sunday  School,  graded  with  classes 
for  all  ages,  ought  to  be  the  Church's  principal  means  of  Chris- 
tian education.  A  pastor  has  two  specific  responsibilities  in  it — 
its  curriculum  and  the  personnel  of  its  teaching  staff.  While  he 
will  have  a  leading  part  in  its  entire  organization,  for  no  institu- 
tion in  the  Church  is  of  greater  moment,  these  two  matters  are 
his  personal  obligations.  If  he  be  loyal  to  this  trust  today,  he 
will  see  that  its  curriculum  is  framed  primarily  to  fit  pupils  at 
their  stage  of  growth  to  fill  their  social  relations  as  Christians, 
and  that  the  teachers  are  men  and  women  who  by  example  and 
intelligent  precept  fit  them  into  their  places  in  a  Christian  social 
order.  The  Sunday  School  must  face  a  social  goal — the  world 
rebuilt  after  Christ's  mind — and  educate  children  and  adults  to 
fashion  it. 

The  pastor  will  usually  have  other  means  of  personal  instruc- 
tion besides  his  preaching — a  series  of  midweek  lectures,  now  and 
again,  or  various  Bible  classes ;  and  his  particular  duty  is  the 
training  of  younger  and  older  persons  entering  the  full  com- 
munion of  the  Church.  In  this  class  he  will  teach  very  explicitly 
what  a  Christian  is,  what  he  should  think,  what  he  should  do, 
and  what  are  his  means  of  obtaining  God's  wisdom  and  strength. 
A  minister's  aim  is  not  to  produce  good  and  faithful  members  of 
the  Church  after  conventional  standards,  but  to  develop  Chris- 
tians of  enlightened  and  sensitive  consciences,  who  will  upset  exist- 


112  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

ing  standards  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
reshape  both  Church  and  world.  Southey,  at  the  conclusion  of 
his  Life  of  John  Wesley,  characterizes  him  "as  a  man  of  great 
views,  great  energy,  and  great  virtues."  Let  the  Church  see  to 
it  that  all  her  members  possess  great  views ;  they  are  prerequisites 
of  great  energy  and  great  virtues. 

The  clear  and  definite  statement  of  her  faith  and  ideal  is  the 
Church's  most  cogent  appeal.  There  is  no  more  effective  defence 
and  proclamation  of  the  Gospel  than  explicit  instruction.  The 
ministry  of  teaching  is  a  continuous  ministry  of  evangelism. 
Ignorance  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  is  still  perhaps  the  most 
serious  obstacle  to  His  mastery  of  men.  Plainly  and  positively 
the  Church  must  set  forth  her  convictions  and  hold  up  her  pro- 
gramme, "teaching  every  man  in  all  wisdom,  that  we  may  present 
every  man  perfect  in  Christ." 


LECTURE  VI 
THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION 

SAINTE  BEUVE,  in  his  classic  history  of  Port-Royal,  names  over 
the  most  conspicuous  figures  in  that  earnest  and  devout  Christian 
company,  showing  how  sadly  it  lacked  vigorous  and  farsighted 
leadership ;  at  the  end  of  his  list  he  mentions  Arnauld,  the  reputed 
head  of  the  movement  in  the  world's  eyes,  and  calls  him  "a  general 
who  in  fact  was  only  the  most  enthusiastic  soldier."  The  min- 
istry is  the  trained  and  appointed  leadership  of  the  Church;  and 
ministers  ought  to  possess  organizing  and  administrative  gifts, 
in  addition  to  being  devoted,  eager  and  hardworking  followers 
of  Jesus.  Unquestionably  there  is  room  in  the  ministry  for  men 
of  diverse  talents,  and  a  man  may  have  gifts  that  fit  him  to  lead 
his  brethren  and  yet  be  lacking  in  executive  ability;  but  there  is 
no  sorer  need  in  the  Church  at  present  than  for  statesmanlike 
churchmen. 

It  has  been  common  to  contrast  the  prophet  with  the  ecclesi- 
astic to  the  latter's  dispraise.  We  are  told  that  our  Lord  was 
a  Teacher  and  Redeemer  of  men,  but  cared  nothing  for  insti- 
tutions. This  is  to  forget  His  fidelity  to  the  Church  in  which 
He  was  reared,  and  His  appreciation  of  its  heritage,  worship, 
festivals  and  opportunities  for  service;  and  to  lose  sight  of  His 
most  effective  organization  of  a  group  of  disciples,  whom  He  so 
bound  to  Himself,  so  successfully  trained  in  a  few  months'  com- 
panionship, and  into  whom  He  so  breathed  His  Spirit,  that  they 
came  to  self-consciousness  as  His  Church,  carried  on  His  faith 
and  purpose  through  the  difficult  break  with  the  Church  to  which 


114  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

He  and  they  had  belonged,  and  began  to  build  a  world-wide  fel- 
lowship. Organizing  talent  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  elabo- 
rateness of  the  machinery  it  devises,  but  by  the  success  with  which 
it  achieves  its  purpose  with  the  materials  at  hand.  The  simpler 
the  forms  it  evolves  the  better,  and  Jesus  for  His  immediate  aim 
is  as  truly  a  consummate  ecclesiastic  as  His  greatest  apostle, 
whose  vision  of  the  Church  was  as  extensive  as  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  whose  missionary  genius  planted  groups  of  Christians  in 
almost  all  its  chief  centres  and  bound  them  to  each  other  in  a  firm 
fellowship  of  convictions  and  endeavor. 

The  present  crisis  has  brought  to  light  that  a  principal  cause 
of  the  Church's  weakness  is  defective  organization.  The  most 
obvious  failing  is  its  crippling  nationalism.  Time  was  when  the 
Catholic  Church  with  its  world-wide  order  dominated  the  govern- 
ments of  the  peoples  of  Western  Christendom.  In  the  interest  of 
liberty,  individual  and  national,  that  domination  was  overthrown. 
But  its  overthrow  has  been  so  complete  that  the  Church  has  been 
everywhere  submerged  by  the  State.  Whether  Greek  or  Roman 
or  Protestant,  whether  under  governmental  control  or  nominally 
free,  the  Church  is  today  subservient  to  national  opinion  uttered 
through  the  heads  of  the  State;  and  in  this  war  it  has  been  con- 
tent in  every  land  to  affirm  its  patriotism  and  endorse  the  course 
of  the  government.  We  recognize  this  most  readily  in  the  State- 
ruled  churches  of  Germany ;  but  the  free  churches  of  the  United 
States  have  shown  little  more  independence.  The  ideals  for  which 
we  are  fighting,  as  they  have  been  set  forth  by  the  President, 
command  the  consciences  of  Christians,  and  the  churches  cannot 
but  stand  loyally  with  the  nation  for  their  triumph.  But  that 
does  not  exhaust  our  obligations  as  Christians.  Theoretically 
we  hold  that  our  allegiance  to  Christ  is  superior  to  our  allegiance 
to  country,  and  that  Christ  unites  us  in  His  Body  with  men  of 
every  nation;  but  in  this  hideous  conflict  no  church  has  moved 
to  establish  relations  with  fellow-Christians  in  enemy  lands  that 
might  assist  in  ending  the  intolerable  conditions  which  not  only 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  115 

set  man  to  slay  fellow-man,  but  disciple  of  Jesus  to  slaughter 
fellow-disciple.  The  Church  is  constrained  to  say  with  one  of 
Shakespeare's  woesome  characters : 

Each  army  hath  a  hand; 
And  in  their  rage,  I  having  hold  of  both, 
They  whirl  asunder  and  dismember  me. 

For  companies  of  British  and  German  Christians  to  meet  to 
receive  the  Lord's  Supper  in  their  respective  camps,  symbol  of 
their  union  with  Christ  and  with  one  another  in  Him,  and  then 
go  forth  to  bomb  and  spray  with  liquid  fire  and  tear  each  other  to 
bits  with  shrapnel,  is  the  ghastly  self-slaughter  of  the  Body  of 
Christ,  and  means  who  knows  what  anguish  to  its  Head. 

Even  if  each  church  were  so  convinced  of  the  righteousness  of 
the  national  course  that  it  felt  bound  to  uphold  the  State,  no 
church  can  ever  view  war  as  a  Christian  method  of  settling  inter- 
national differences,  nor  ought  it  to  allow  civic  duties  to  absolve 
its  members  from  their  loftier  obligations  to  fellow-churchmen. 
We  have  lacked  now  for  several  centuries  an  adequate  inter- 
national or  supernational  organization  of  the  Church,  to  main- 
tain its  consciousness  of  unity  in  Christ,  and  to  supply  a  natural 
means  of  bringing  its  leaders  together  to  fulfil  their  bounden 
duty  of  guiding  the  nations  to  righteousness  and  peace.  Roman 
Catholicism  has  suppressed  an  earlier  tendency  towards  a  gen- 
eral council  in  its  exaltation  of  the  papacy,  leaving  a  hopelessly 
unrepresentative  ecclesiastical  autocrat  of  decreasing  significance 
in  a  world  moving  rapidly  towards  democracy.  Protestantism 
has  forgotten  altogether  the  wistful  longings  of  its  early  leaders 
for  such  an  ecumenical  representation  of  Christendom — an  assem- 
bly consonant  with  its  ideal  of  the  Church  as  the  Respublica 
Christi.  Thoughtful  statesmen  are  discussing  an  international 
league;  shall  the  Church  lag  behind  civil  governments  in  a  prov- 
ince which  is  peculiarly  her  domain — the  organization  of  her 
forces  to  secure  earth-wide  brotherhood? 


116  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

In  recent  decades  representatives  of  the  Reformed  Churches  of 
many  lands  have  met  in  ecumenical  conferences  to  advise  together 
on  missionary  work  in  heathen  countries.  Would  that  some 
"heathen"  would  call  loudly  to  us  to  meet  again,  and  talk  over 
Christianizing  national  ambitions,  commerce,  tariffs,  diplomacy, 
the  control  of  immigration  and  the  adjustment  of  international 
disputes !  Such  a  conference  ought  to  include  our  Greek  and 
Roman  brethren,  if  they  will  attend.  It  would  be  found  that 
in  dealing  with  the  duties  of  nations,  with  the  principles  that 
should  govern  industry  and  trade,  with  the  obligations  of  stronger 
towards  weaker  peoples,  the  old  ecclesiastical  alignments  would 
be  wiped  out.  A  papalist  and  a  congregationalist,  a  sacramen- 
tarian  and  a  quaker,  may  well  agree  on  what  nations  must  do  to 
prevent  war  and  become  helpful  servants  one  of  another.  A  con- 
ference on  faith  and  order  may  do  somewhat  to  remove  misunder- 
standings and  bring  to  light  underlying  agreements  among  the 
communions  of  Christendom ;  but  a  discussion  of  duties,  individual 
and  social,  should  precede  the  discussion  of  polity.  The  Church 
should  organize  herself  in  view  of  the  purpose  she  is  given  to 
fulfil  in  the  circumstances  of  the  hour.  What  form  must  she 
assume  and  what  machinery  must  she  devise  to  make  nations, 
industrial  groups,  men  and  women  in  their  homes,  callings  and 
world,  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ?  Here  is  a  task  for  organizing 
talent  of  the  highest  kind.  Unless  such  organization  be  achieved 
the  Church  cannot  come  to  herself  as  the  universal  fellowship  of 
Christ,  nor  fulfil  the  ministry  committed  to  her  of  building  man- 
kind into  one  household  of  God. 

Another  manifest  weakness  is  denominationalism.  When  the 
churches  of  this  country  faced  the  duty  of  caring  for  the  soldiers 
and  sailors  in  training  camps,  on  the  sea,  and  in  the  field,  it  was 
evident  that  our  sectarian  organizations  were  incapable  of  meet- 
ing the  situation.  Happily  we  possessed  an  effective  interde- 
nominational agency  in  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
and  the  beginnings  of  a  united  Protestant  Church  in  the  Federal 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  117 

Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ;  but  those  who  have  had  part 
in  the  work  know  how  pitiably  often  sectarianism  showed  itself 
an  annoying  and  hampering  factor,  and  how  outworn  our  divi- 
sions appeared.  So  long  as  religion  is  viewed  mainly  as  a  per- 
sonal affair  between  a  man  and  his  Maker,  denominations  seem 
desirable.  A  believer  has  a  choice  of  churches,  in  some  one  of 
which  he  is  likely  to  find  a  form  of  worship  and  of  teaching  and 
a  fellowship  of  kindred  souls  which  is  suited  to  help  him  in  his  life 
with  God.  A  town  is  thought  justified  in  having  as  many  churches 
as  its  inhabitants  can  support,  or  can  prevail  on  like-minded 
believers  elsewhere  to  assist  them  in  supporting.  That  these 
churches  are  small  is  nothing  against  them;  many  people  prefer 
small  churches ;  and  they  suit  the  tastes  of  their  congenial  mem- 
bers in  the  momentous  matter  of  their  personal  intercourse  with 
God.  The  differences  in  the  denominations  may  become  negligible 
in  the  eyes  of  many  of  their  adherents,  and  both  ministers  and 
people  may  move  freely  from  a  church  of  one  communion  to  one 
of  another;  thoughtful  persons  may  deem  the  maintenance  of  a 
number  of  similar  churches  in  a  community  very  wasteful,  and 
ministers  in  such  charges  may  feel  themselves  cramped,  unless 
they  be  clerical  Lilliputians ;  but  the  denominational  system  is 
valiantly  defended  so  long  as  the  individualistic  conception  of 
religion  prevails. 

But  when  the  social  character  of  the  Christian  faith  is  recog- 
nized, it  becomes  unbearable.  Social  vision  leads  men  to  view  a 
city  or  a  rural  region  as  a  unit,  and  to  frame  a  comprehensive 
design  for  its  supply  with  religious  inspirations ;  but  denomina- 
tionalism  prevents  any  unified  plan,  and  invariably  causes  the 
overchurching  of  some  sections  and  the  neglect  of  others.  One 
cannot,  and  (it  is  to  be  hoped)  one  would  not  project  a  Con- 
gregationalist  Connecticut  or  a  Reformed  Dutch  New  York,  an 
Episcopal  China  or  a  Methodist  Japan.  Where  federation  keeps 
a  number  of  sects  from  overlapping,  it  cannot  give  a  single  front. 
The  war  has  taught  the  difficulty  of  attaining  the  complete  unity 


118  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

of  allies.  Denominationalism  leaves  home  missionary  societies  too 
straitened  to  supply  in  many  places  the  sort  of  church  adequate 
for  local  needs,  and  tempts  them  to  multiply  puny  enterprises. 
Rival  churches  are  compelled  to  justify  their  separate  existence 
by  magnifying  their  differences  and  belittling  their  likenesses; 
the  assembling  of  like  with  like  intensifies  and  solidifies  their  par- 
ticular type;  inevitably  their  members  are  deprived  of  most  valu- 
able portions  of  the  Church's  heritage,  and  become  sectaries 
rather  than  catholic  Christians.  They  assist  social  stratification 
by  drawing  together  families  of  the  same  economic  status,  and 
barring  them  from  religious  fellowship  with  those  of  another 
class.  They  are  to  be  found  in  numbers  in  a  prosperous  neighbor- 
hood, and  are  forced  to  desert  a  neighborhood  of  diminishing 
opulence  even  when  its  population  is  increasing.  Worst  of  all 
they  give  the  community  no  sense  of  religious  solidarity — that 
fundamental  oneness  from  which  other  much-needed  harmonies 
will  spring. 

Almost  every  American  town  has  at  least  a  half  dozen  Protes- 
tant churches,  whose  members  hold  almost  identical  beliefs  and 
standards  of  conduct,  which  maintain  very  similar  methods  of 
work  and  worship,  and  whose  ministers  have  been  trained  to  do 
about  the  same  thing.  Each  of  these  churches  carries  on  a  Sun- 
day School,  which  probably  parallels  those  of  the  other  five  in  its 
curriculum,  and  which  is  usually  too  small  to  be  anything  like  as 
well  graded  and  taught  as  the  single  public  school  of  the  town. 
None  of  them  is  apt  to  be  strong  enough  to  attempt  more  than 
a  limited  ministry  to  the  religious  wants  of  its  adherents.  A 
community  church,  with  a  staff  of  several  trained  ministers,  spe- 
cially fitted  for  leadership  in  different  ministries,  could  maintain 
all  of  the  types  of  worship  and  service  now  to  be  found  in  the 
six  churches,  and  add  other  types  of  devotion  and  usefulness, 
could  conduct  a  school  comparable  in  educational  efficiency  to 
the  public  school,  would  give  the  town  a  consciousness  of  religious 
oneness,  at  present  sadly  to  seek,  and  be  able  to  provide  it  other 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  119 

ministries  to  Christianize  some  now  untouched  areas  of  its  life. 
There  ought  to  be  a  saving  in  the  cost  of  operation  that  would 
be  a  substantial  gain  to  the  Church's  power  to  contribute  to  mis- 
sions and  benevolences.  Above  all,  such  a  realized  fellowship  of 
the  Christians  in  a  community,  such  a  true  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ,  would  enrich  each  of  its  members  out  of  the  wealth  of  the 
whole  Christian  inheritance  present  in  that  place;  and  advances 
in  service  would  mark  their  closer  corporate  life. 

There  are  a  few  favored  localities  where  it  is  feasible  even 
under  existing  circumstances  to  build  up  such  a  comprehensive 
church  for  an  entire  community ;  but  in  most  places  the  denomi- 
national system  renders  this  impossible.  We  do  not  hasten  the 
wished-for  unity  by  forsaking  the  communions  of  our  birth  and 
upbringing,  with  whose  advantages  and  disadvantages  we  are 
most  familiar,  nor  by  founding  independent  and  union  local 
churches,  which  only  add  to  the  ecclesiastical  confusion.  Socially 
minded  Christian  leaders  who  have  in  heart  transcended  sectarian 
barriers  and  feel  their  oneness  with  all  Christ's  disciples,  must 
remain  steadfastly  in  their  communions,  and  by  their  ministry 
of  organization  reshape  them  into  the  inclusive  Church  of  Christ, 
banishing  everything  that  disbars  a  sincere  follower  of  the  Master 
or  impedes  him  in  the  exercise  of  his  gifts ;  and  must  lead  their 
communions  into  federations  for  service,  and  into  mergers,  which 
a  world  now  in  fragments  and  soon  to  be  in  process  of  recon- 
struction will  help  to  make  possible.  Hitherto  it  may  be  said  of 
most  of  the  approaches  towards  Church  unity,  as  Thomas  Fuller 
wrote  of  the  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians  of  his  day:  "They 
make  motions  with  their  mouths,  but  none  with  their  feet,  for 
peace,  not  stirring  a  step  towards  it."  But  the  time  for  action 
is  at  hand;  a  many-times-subdivided  Church  cannot  meet  the 
social  situation ;  and  the  time  calls  for  men  with  organizing  gifts. 

Such  men  will  be  faithful  and  intelligent  ecclesiastics  in  exist- 
ing communions,  for  they  must  carry  them  with  fewest  possible 
losses  into  the  more  comprehensive  bodies  that  will  be.  Ecclesi- 


120  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

astics,  like  politicians,  as  we  have  said,  are  underrated.  To  be 
sure  some  at  present  in  control  of  church  organizations  are,  like 
some  in  political  positions,  inferior  and  unadmirable  men.  Ad- 
vance may  at  times  require  the  wresting  of  control  from  the 
incompetent  and  unworthy;  and  in  the  Church,  as  in  the  State, 
we  often  find 

How  softly,  but  how  swiftly,  they  have  sidled  back  to  power 
By  the  favor  and  contrivance  of  their  kind. 

But  to  be  a  skilful  ecclesiastic  with  vision,  and  with  administrative 
ability  to  bring  visions  to  pass,  is  to  render  the  very  highest  serv- 
ice to  the  Church  of  Christ.  John  Calvin,  in  his  farewell  to  the 
ministers  of  Geneva,  told  them :  "When  I  first  came  to  this  church, 
I  found  almost  nothing  in  it.  There  was  preaching  and  that 
was  all.  Everything  was  in  disorder."  The  plans  he  made  for 
discipline,  teaching,  worship,  became  the  organizing  principles 
of  the  Reformed  Churches  everywhere,  and  contain  elements  that 
will  be  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  Church  of  all  time.  Thomas 
Chalmers  found  the  Scottish  Kirk  of  little  service  to  the  ever 
increasing  industrial  population  of  the  cities.  In  the  projects 
which  he  evolved  while  minister  of  the  Tron  Kirk  in  Glasgow,  and 
which  he  published  in  a  series  of  pamphlets  on  The  Civil  and 
Christian  Economy  of  our  Large  Towns,  and  later  embodied  in 
St.  John's  Parish  in  the  midst  of  a  working-class  district,  he  laid 
out  a  comprehensive  system  for  the  effective  management  of  an 
urban  charge.  The  Glasgow  Herald,  on  the  Monday  morning 
after  his  first  Sabbath  at  St.  John's,  said:  "The  decidedly  paro- 
chial aspect  of  the  evening  congregation  was  scarcely,  if  at  all, 
impaired  by  any  great  admixture  of  hearers  from  the  general  or 
indiscriminate  public ;  and  it  was  felt  as  a  novel  and  affecting 
singularity  to  witness  such  a  multitude  of  the  laboring  classes 
of  our  city  so  respectably  provided  with  Sabbath  accommodation 
in  one  of  the  churches  of  the  Establishment.  The  impression 
was  much  heightened  upon  observing  that  the  great  body  of  the 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  121 

population,  on  retiring  from  church,  when  they  had  reached  the 
bottom  of  Macfarlane-street,  turned  in  nearly  an  unbroken 
stream  to  the  east  along  the  Gallowgate,  or  in  the  direction 
which  leads  to  the  main  bulk  of  the  parish  and  its  inhabitants." 
His  careful  census  of  his  more  than  ten  thousand  souls  for  whom 
St.  John's  was  the  nearest  church,  his  methods  of  districting  the 
parish,  planning  to  reach  every  family,  and  to  supply  thorough 
Christian  education,  his  skill  in  associating  a  large  group  of  men 
and  women  with  him  as  lay  helpers  and  in  getting  his  elders  and 
deacons  to  assume  definite  responsibilities,  repay  most  careful 
study  and  are  suggestive  to  any  minister  today.  What  Calvin 
did  for  the  Reformed  Church  in  Geneva,  and  what  Chalmers  did 
for  the  Scottish  Kirk  in  the  early  days  of  Nineteenth  Century 
industrialism,  must  be  taken  in  hand  by  men  of  organizing  talent 
to  adjust  the  socially  enlightened  Church  of  our  time  to  its  mis- 
sion of  turning  every  community  and  nation,  and  the  world  itself, 
into  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ. 

Now  the  eager  people  yearn  to  find 
The  organizing  hand  that  fast  may  bind 
Loose  straws  of  aimless  aspiration  fain 
In  sheaves  of  serviceable  grain. 

In  the  Church,  as  in  civil  government  and  in  the  management 
of  industry,  the  problem  of  polity  is  the  combination  of  indi- 
vidual freedom  with  social  efficiency,  and  of  administrative  initia- 
tive and  power  with  democratic  control.  The  Church  must  be 
kept  open  and  safe  for  prophets,  and  compact  and  loyal  for 
collective  service.  Her  organization  must  be  strong  enough  to 
marshal  all  her  forces  in  a  common  purpose,  and  elastic  enough 
to  give  full  play  to  local  and  individual  independence  in  thought 
and  method.  She  must  provide  against  "strength  by  limping 
sway  disabled"  and  truth  "made  tongue-tied  by  authority."  We 
shall  be  assisted  in  churchcraft,  no  doubt,  by  the  experience  of 
statecraft  and  of  the  conduct  of  industry;  but,  as  in  the  past, 


122  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  Church  should  be  the  pioneer  in  government  and  offer  her 
contributions  to  the  ordering  of  civil  and  economic  affairs.  We 
are  under  the  living  leadership  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  who  is 
the  Spirit  of  liberty  and  unity.  The  more  fully  we  bring  our 
communions  and  parishes  under  His  sway  the  more  completely  we 
shall  attain  both. 

There  are  some  facts  concerning  existing  organizations  to  be 
borne  in  mind: 

One  is  that,  while  polities  are  not  equally  favorable  to  the 
cultivation  of  the  various  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  one  finds  a  striking 
similarity  of  gifts  in  all  communions  of  the  Church,  when  one 
looks  beneath  the  different  labels  attached  to  various  functions 
and  offices.  A  veteran  Baptist  missionary  may  abhor  the  title 
but  exercise  all  the  authority  of  a  diocesan  bishop,  and  a  strong 
Methodist  congregation  may  be  as  independent  as  many  a  Con- 
gregational church.  On  the  other  hand  identity  in  name  by  no 
means  implies  identity  in  gift.  The  episcopal  office  in  the  days 
of  Charles  the  Second  in  the  Anglican  Church  is  quite  different 
from  that  office  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  this  coun- 
try, and  an  elder  in  a  Presbyterian  church  in  New  York  City  a 
century  ago  discharged  other  duties  than  those  now  laid  on  his 
titular  successors.  The  Church,  no  more  than  other  institu- 
tions in  a  changing  world,  can  keep  an  unchanging  form.  To 
see  her  spiritual  continuity  chiefly  in  the  unbroken  succession  of 
a  particular  office  is  to  see  it  in  a  mere  name  that  alters  its  signifi- 
cance with  the  circumstances  of  the  age  and  land  in  which  the 
Church  finds  herself.  The  continuity  is  in  the  one  enriching 
Spirit  of  life  who  lives  in  the  organism  through  the  centuries, 
distributing  His  gifts  as  freely  as  the  fellowship  will  receive  and 
employ  them.  We  should  study  what  gifts  the  situation  in  any 
place  or  in  the  world  of  our  day  demands,  and  shape  polity  to 
provide  for  their  development  and  exercise,  confident  that  the 
indwelling  Spirit  will  not  fail  us. 

A  second  is  the  possibility  even  under  present  conditions  of 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  123 

borrowing  from  other  polities  and  incorporating  in  one's  own 
most  of  their  useful  features.  An  Episcopal  rector  may  lead  his 
vestry  to  assume  the  responsibilities  of  spiritual  oversight  borne 
by  a  Presbyterian  session.  The  Methodist  conception  of  a  class- 
leader  may  be  advantageously  employed  in  other  communions  to 
care  for  new  members.  Episcopal  and  Methodist  deaconesses 
are  coming  into  vogue  in  Presbyterian  and  Congregational 
churches.  In  polity,  as  in  worship,  the  more  extensively  we  bor- 
row from  one  another,  the  more  we  shall  enrich  our  several  com- 
munions and  bring  unity  before  the  day  of  reunion.  Gregory 
the  Great,  according  to  Bede,  gave  Augustine  of  Canterbury 
wise  counsel:  "You  know,  my  brother,  the  custom  of  the  Roman 
Church  wherein  you  yourself  were  bred.  But  it  pleases  me  that 
if  you  have  found  anything  either  in  the  Roman,  or  in  the  Galli- 
can,  or  in  any  other  Church,  which  may  be  more  acceptable  to 
Almighty  God,  you  carefully  make  choice  of  the  same,  and  teach 
it  to  the  Church  of  the  English  which  is  but  new  in  the  Faith. 
Choose  therefore  from  every  Church  those  things  which  are  pious, 
religious  and  upright;  and  when  you  have  as  it  were  made  them 
into  one  body,  let  the  minds  of  the  English  be  accustomed 
thereto." 

A  third  is  the  necessity  of  remembering  that  organization  is 
for  people,  and  not  people  for  organization.  The  question  is 
often  put  "Can  a  Lutheran  church  be  maintained  in  a  given  local- 
ity?" instead  of  "Can  the  community  be  best  served  by  a  Lutheran 
church?"  One  frequently  hears  of  "getting  a  congregation  for 
the  second  service,"  or  of  "solving  the  problem  of  the  midweek 
meeting,"  or  of  "developing  a  men's  association,"  as  though  these 
were  ends  instead  of  means.  In  the  Church  as  in  our  human 
bodies,  there  may  be  survivals  of  things  once  useful  and  now  with- 
out a  function,  like  the  vermiform  appendix.  Under  some  circum- 
stances the  church  organization  is  the  better  for  a  surgical 
operation.  We  ought  to  look  at  everything  about  the  church 
in  view  of  the  function  it  fulfils ;  what  is  the  most  useful  service 


124  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  church  can  render  the  community  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  or 
a  Sunday  evening?  what  end  can  be  accomplished  by  a  midweek 
meeting?  are  there  purposes  an  association  of  churchmen  can 
achieve?  The  fairly  large  machinery  of  many  churches  often 
produces  no  effect  commensurate  with  its  magnitude;  and  noth- 
ing is  more  depressing  to  minister  and  people  than  the  sense  that 
they  are  faithfully  and  painfully  keeping  wheels  revolving  which 
do  not  assist  in  manufacturing  Christian  men  and  women.  The 
Church,  like  the  sabbath,  is  made  for  man,  and  no  teaching, 
worship  or  activity  should  have  a  place  in  it  that  is  not  humanly 
serviceable. 

Our  immediate  concern  is  not  with  the  organization  of  our  com- 
munion nor  of  the  reunited  Church  of  Christ,  but  with  the  organi- 
zation of  a  parish.  A  new  minister's  duty  is  to  assume  that  the 
existing  activities  of  a  church  are  useful,  and  to  set  himself  to 
take  his  part  in  them.  He  is  called  by  a  congregation  to  be  their 
pastor;  let  him  not  fail  in  any  obligation  to  them.  But  let  him 
also  remember  that  through  them  he  is  called  to  a  community, 
whose  religious  needs  he  must  study  in  order  to  discover  what 
the  church  he  leads  should  try  to  do.  Nor  can  we  define  "re- 
ligious needs"  narrowly.  Men's  life  with  God  depends  upon  all 
the  rest  of  their  life — their  health,  their  education,  their  recrea- 
tions, their  social  intercourse.  There  is  no  lack  in  the  life  of  a 
community  which  a  church  may  not  try  to  supply  if  it  possesses 
the  power.  It  dare  not  lose  its  sense  of  proportion  and  forget 
its  unique  ministry  of  the  Evangel  of  Christ;  but  that  Evangel 
has  a  message  for  every  human  relation.  If  there  is  a  lack  of 
healthy  amusements,  if  civic  questions  require  more  public  dis- 
cussion, if  the  schools  need  supplementing  with  training  in  trades 
or  domestic  science,  if  mothers  are  ignorant  of  the  principles  of 
good  home-making,  if  boys  and  girls  are  curtailed  in  their  chances 
for  play,  if  young  people  cannot  meet  under  wholesome  auspices, 
if  working-men  want  a  place  to  spend  their  leisure, — in  these 
and  numberless  kindred  needs  the  Church  finds  a  duty  and  an 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  125 

opening  for  her  ministry.  She  ought  not  to  undertake  anything 
that  some  other  agency — the  government,  or  a  social  club,  or  a 
business  house — can  do  as  well;  she  will  never  want  for  work  of 
her  own.  If  anything  which  she  has  started  can  be  more  advan- 
tageously handled  by  the  school,  or  the  town  authorities,  or  a 
Christian  Association,  let  her  cheerfully  part  with  it.  Like  a 
physician,  her  aim  is  to  render  herself  unnecessary;  in  the  com- 
pleted city  of  God  there  is  no  temple.  But  for  the  present  in 
most  communities  there  are  any  number  of  approaches  to  men 
and  women  and  little  children  that  she  must  attempt,  and  any 
number  of  services  she  must  take  in  hand  for  them,  if  she  is  to 
furnish  them  with  fulness  of  life  with  God. 

This  is  not  to  urge  that  a  church  embark  on  social  ministries 
which  are  not  definitely  and  outspokenly  religious.  If  some  gen- 
erations have  been  too  glib  in  their  speech  concerning  God,  ours 
is  too  tongue-tied.  It  is  not  the  churches  which  are  apologetic 
in  presenting  their  message  of  God  in  Christ  which  are  most 
successful.  A  neighborhood  ought  to  be  surveyed,  as  Chalmers 
surveyed  his  Glasgow  parish,  with  a  view  to  bringing  as  frankly 
Christian  inspirations  to  every  accessible  home  and  group  in 
it  as  he  strove  to  bring  to  his  people.  We  do  not  want  less  but 
more  evangelism,  and  an  evangelism  which  has  a  regenerating 
gospel  for  industry  and  pleasure  and  education  and  government 
and  the  whole  social  life,  as  well  as  a  personal  appeal  to  men 
to  let  Christ  become  their  Lord  and  Saviour.  But  such  social 
evangelism  has  often  to  be  presented  by  many  ministries  besides 
those  of  preaching  and  teaching  and  individual  conversations; 
nor  are  any  of  these  ministries  less  "spiritual,"  if  we  define  spirit- 
uality as  was  done  in  a  previous  lecture.  And  on  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary field  and  in  parishes  at  home,  ministries  of  human  help- 
fulness are  richest  in  results  when  rendered  by  those  whose  glow- 
ing passion  to  win  lives  for  Christ  keeps  them  open-eyed  for 
chances  to  face  men  with  Him  and  unhesitant  in  speaking  of  His 
incomparable  worth. 


126  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

A  manifold  ministry  is  expensive.  It  demands  a  larger  plant 
with  other  facilities  than  most  churches  possess ;  it  requires  more 
workers,  and  workers  who  give  regularly  much  time  and  skilled 
service.  Churches  hesitate  to  face  such  outlays.  But  the  sums 
raised  for  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  during  the 
War,  and  the  unused  leisure  and  energy  of  thousands  of  members 
of  our  churches  devoted  to  public  service,  show  that  means  and 
workers  are  not  wanting  when  there  is  a  cause  to  enlist  them. 
Many  a  church  would  find  it  easier  to  raise  a  larger  budget,  were 
it  giving  the  community  a  larger  service.  It  is  the  part  of  a 
skilful  administrator  to  list  the  resources  of  his  constituency,  and 
to  keep  facing  his  congregation  with  work  that  will  prove  a 
constant  strain.  Churches,  like  individuals,  work  best  under 
considerable  pressure. 

And  a  manifold  ministry  usually  requires  more  than  one  em- 
ployed minister.  An  assistant  trained  along  similar  lines  with 
the  pastor  may  be  needed  in  very  large  congregations ;  but  it  is 
usually  uneconomical  to  have  two  men  fit  for  the  same  ministry. 
Men  of  widely  differing  equipments  supplement  each  other  and 
diversify  the  church's  services.  Whether  technically  ordained  or 
not,  a  director  of  religious  education  (corresponding  in  part  to 
the  "teacher"  of  our  early  Puritan  churches),  a  man  who  devotes 
himself  to  evangelism  and  the  care  of  those  recently  won  to  the 
faith,  an  administrator  of  the  Church's  various  forms  of  social 
helpfulness,  can  fulfil  offices  as  useful  as  that  of  the  preacher  and 
pastor.  Women,  as  well  as  men,  are  increasingly  sought  after 
for  supplementary  ministries  in  the  Church;  and  the  positions 
offered  them  must  be  made  appealing  to  the  finest  graduates  of 
our  colleges.  None  of  these  workers  should  be  regarded  as  mere 
subordinates  and  assistants  of  the  pastor,  simply  to  relieve  him 
and  take  tasks  which  he  may  assign  them.  Each  must  have  a 
place  of  dignity  in  the  eyes  of  the  congregation,  a  definite  sphere 
with  scope  for  leadership,  and  a  chance  to  be  heard  in  the  framing 
of  policies  and  the  planning  of  the  work.  They  are  not  employees 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  127 

but  members  of  a  firm.  The  pastor  must  hold  himself  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  senior  partner.  Ministers  in  the  past  have  usually 
worked  in  single  harness;  ministers  in  the  future  must  learn  to 
work  in  teams. 

It  is  a  moot  question  whether  a  so-called  "institutional  church" 
should  offer  its  ministries  of  recreation  and  education  to  any  who 
will  accept  them,  or  confine  them  to  those  who  use  its  religious 
ministry  and  are  in  some  sense  members  of  its  Christian  fellow- 
ship. Advocates  of  the  former  view  point  out  that  these  services 
are  of  worth  in  themselves  and  enable  the  church  to  do  good  by 
these  opportunities  to  those  who  do  not  care  to  become  of  its 
household  of  faith;  that  they  attract  many  who  would  not  come 
in  the  first  instance  for  its  religious  inspiration;  and  that  they 
afford  the  church's  workers  a  chance  to  become  acquainted  with 
them  and  to  lead  them  into  the  life  with  Christ.  Advocates  of 
the  latter  view  insist  that  the  church's  sole  interest  is  in  giving 
men  life  with  Christ  in  God,  and  that  to  offer  them  anything 
apart  from  this  is  to  seem  not  to  deem  it  indispensable;  that  all 
men  have  religious  needs,  and,  without  apology  the  church  should 
present  them  with  its  Gospel,  and  appeal  to  them  to  receive  it  as 
the  power  of  God;  and  that  anything  it  can  do  for  them  along 
other  lines  should  be  viewed  as  supplementing  and  enriching  lives 
already  possessed  of,  or  at  least  being  taught,  the  one  thing 
needful.  Local  conditions  will  usually  determine  which  is  the 
wiser  policy.  The  latter  is  much  the  easier  to  administer.  Every 
member  of  the  church,  and  every  regular  attendant  at  any  of  its 
services  or  religious  classes,  is  expected  to  contribute  towards  the 
church's  budget  and  is  entitled  without  further  dues  to  its  social 
privileges.  This  obviates  the  necessity  of  fixed  charges,  makes 
support  of  the  church  a  matter  for  the  conscience  of  all  who 
compose  its  fellowship,  allows  each  to  give  according  to  his 
ability,  and  brings  all  who  avail  themselves  of  any  of  its  ministries 
more  readily  under  its  spiritual  oversight  and  control. 

A  church  with  a  many-sided  ministry  is  likely  to   find  itself 


128  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

overlapping  some  of  the  work  carried  on  by  other  institutions, 
such  as  social  settlements  or  Christian  Associations.  There  must 
be  the  closest  and  heartiest  cooperation,  and  a  minister  will  do 
everything  in  his  power  to  establish  cordial  relations  with  the 
leaders  of  such  enterprises.  It  is  not  possible  to  lay  down  hard 
and  fast  lines  delimiting  their  several  spheres  of  work.  It  is  fair 
to  say  that  some  of  these  institutions  would  not  have  come  into 
being  had  the  Church  of  the  past  been  effectively  organized.  As 
a  rule  they  are  not  consciously  rivals,  and  often  they  are  the 
Church  organized  under  another  name  for  specific  tasks.  They 
command  approaches  to  groups  in  the  community  which  are 
barred  to  the  Church,  and  can  do  pioneer  work  along  lines  which 
it  is  not  easy  for  the  Church  to  attempt.  Let  the  Church  join 
with  them  in  plans  for  the  betterment  of  the  community,  supply 
them  with  workers,  with  sources  of  income,  and  with  inspiration. 
Let  them  take  the  role  of  John  the  Baptist,  preparing  the  way, 
and,  where  possible,  turning  over  those  whom  they  reach  to  the 
Church  for  permanent  religious  fellowship. 

The  Church  exists  for  the  Kingdom,  and  its  members  will 
render  the  largest  part  of  their  Christian  service  outside  its 
walls  in  their  homes,  occupations  and  civic  life;  but  it  is  ideal 
to  have  each  of  them  engaged  in  some  of  the  Church's  ministries. 
By  no  means  must  work  be  made  for  them;  such  artificial  tasks 
disgust  socially  minded  men  and  women.  But  if  a  church  has 
not  a  task  for  every  member,  there  is  something  wanting  in  its 
programme  for  the  community ;  it  can  hardly  have  asked  itself, 
What  must  be  done  to  render  this  neighborhood  in  every  aspect 
a  province  of  the  Kingdom  of  heaven?  Let  its  leaders  study 
their  community  again  to  see  what  circles  in  it  are  untouched  by 
Christian  inspirations,  or  what  phases  of  its  life  sustain  a  merely 
colonial  relation  to  the  government  of  Christian  ideals ;  let  them 
notice  whether  men  and  women  whose  hours  of  employment  are 
irregular  or  unusual  have  been  overlooked;  let  them  observe  what 
persons  or  groups  of  persons  have  but  a  partial  spiritual  life 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  129 

because  of  defective  opportunities;  and  let  them  face  the  church 
with  these  obvious  claims.  Our  congregations  ought  to  be  made 
much  more  uncomfortable  for  our  all-too-numerous  slackers. 
Again  and  again  as  one  views  the  able  people  who  are  loafers 
so  far  as  the  Church's  work  goes,  one  is  reminded  of  the  saying 
of  Nehemiah  concerning  the  labor  on  the  wall  of  Jerusalem 
assigned  to  the  Tekoites:  "their  nobles  put  not  their  necks  to 
the  work  of  their  Lord."  Men  feel  disgraced  in  a  day  of  their 
country's  need  if  they  have  no  share  in  the  national  service;  let 
them  be  made  equally  ashamed  when  the  Church  of  Christ  needs 
them  still  more  sorely,  and  they  fail  to  fill  some  place  in  its 
ministry. 

And  every  church  has  responsibilities  outside  its  own  locality 
which  it  must  meet  with  knowledge,  sympathy,  prayer,  gifts,  and 
sometimes  with  recruits.  It  must  be  organized  to  discharge  these 
obligations,  for  good  intentions  and  generous  impulses  are  made 
fruitless  by  lack  of  well-contrived  plans  for  their  expression. 
Its  most  important  provisions  are  for  adequate  information  and 
for  systematic  response.  Where  congregations  can  be  tied  up 
to  particular  missionary  enterprises  the  chances  for  intelligent 
and  sympathetic  cooperation  are  vastly  increased.  Nothing  is 
more  spiritually  deadening  than  congregational  selfishness  which 
sees  no  responsibilities  beyond  its  own  bounds.  A  minister  can- 
not develop  consciences  sturdy  enough  for  their  immediate  circle 
of  duties  when  he  trains  them  in  a  sense  of  accountability  for 
anything  less  than  a  whole  world.  The  financial  scheme  of  an 
"every  member  canvass"  which  presents  unusually  side  by  side 
the  needs  of  the  parish  and  the  claims  of  missions  and  benevo- 
lences, and  provides  for  regular  and  systematic  contributions  to 
both,  is  not  only  successful  in  returns  in  money  but  in  results 
in  character. 

A  minister  in  leading  his  people  along  new  lines  of  service 
needs  constantly  to  remind  himself  that  the  church  is  always 
a  fellowship,  and  that  he  must  win  for  the  courses  he  advocates 


130  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

the  intelligent  and  conscientious  support  of  the  whole  congre- 
gation, or  at  least  of  all  but  a  negligible  minority.  At  times  a 
pastor  becomes  restive  under  the  objections  raised  to  new  ven- 
tures, and  impatient  of  the  tenacity  with  which  his  people  cling 
to  clearly  outworn  ways.  On  the  other  hand,  a  pastor  is  often 
so  loved  and  trusted  that  almost  anything  which  he  suggests  is 
followed  for  his  sake  without  thoughtful  consideration  and  intelli- 
gent approval  on  its  own  merits,  and  he  is  expected  (dear  man!) 
to  assume  entire  responsibility  for  its  success  or  failure.  Neither 
obduracy  nor  easy  acquiescence  are  compatible  with  fellowship. 
An  administrator's  most  delicate  problem  is  frequently  that  of 
gauging  the  proper  rate  of  advance;  he  must  take  his  people 
much  further  towards  usefulness,  and  he  must  do  it  so  that  they 
are  not  dragged,  but  go  willingly  with  him.  When  a  minister 
attempts  to  drag  a  congregation,  the  pastoral  cable  usually 
breaks.  When  they  give  him  all  the  rope  he  wants,  he  is  very 
likely  to  hang  himself.  Both  for  their  sakes  and  his,  fellowship 
must  be  maintained,  or  they  are  ceasing  to  be  a  Church  of  Christ. 
In  a  day  when  the  Church  needs  so  thorough  a  reorganization 
that  it  may  compass  the  even  more  thorough  regeneration  of  the 
social  order,  it  is  easy  for  a  minister  to  be  goaded  by  the  many 
carping  voices  from  without  and  by  a  few  hasty  spirits  within 
to  attempt  too  rapid  alterations.  Fortunately,  like  all  venerable 
institutions,  the  Church  is  sufficiently  conservative  to  stand  safely 
much  ministerial  radicalism.  But  let  a  pastor  remember  the 
wise  saying  of  a  noted  Anglican  bishop,  the  late  Dr.  Creighton, 
that  "the  administrator  has  to  drive  the  coach;  his  critics  are 
always  urging  him  to  upset  it."  If  we  can  show  our  people  that 
our  first  readjustments  produce  results,  they  grow  readv  to 
attempt  more  hazardous  experiments.  When  once  a  minister  has 
their  confidence,  they  are  prepared  to  follow  as  swiftly  as  it  is 
wise  for  him  to  move  forward.  Only  let  him  never  forget  that  a 
fellowship  "moveth  all  together  if  it  move  at  all." 

A  minister's  most  difficult  problem  in  organization  is  probably 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  131 

not  his  congregation,  but  himself;  and  his  first  task  is  the  direc- 
tion of  his  own  time  and  energies.  Like  the  ant  in  Scripture,  he 
has  no  chief,  overseer,  or  ruler  (unless  it  be  his  wife),  and  the 
more  numerous  the  projects  in  which  he  is  interested  the  more 
essential  that  he  deliberately  focus  his  efforts  where  they  will 
prove  of  most  service.  Laziness  is  certainly  the  cardinal  minis- 
terial vice,  a  vice  not  often  eradicated  and  sometimes  sadly  aug- 
mented in  the  theological  seminary.  And  by  laziness  is  not  meant 
inactivity;  American  ministers  are  seldom  inactive;  but  they  are 
active  along  the  easiest  lines — theirs  is  the  strenua  inertia  of 
Horace.  "There  is  one  that  toileth  and  laboreth  and  maketh 
haste,  and  is  so  much  the  more  behind."  One  man  is  shamelessly 
lazy  in  his  study,  reads  next  to  nothing  and  pursues  no  consecu- 
tive course  that  may  be  called  "study,"  flings  together  an  ill- 
thought,  hastily  worded  sermon  and  slubbers  over  the  preparation 
of  his  public  prayers,  while  he  bustles  about  contriving  advertise- 
ments of  services  and  urging  people  to  attend,  where  they  get 
nothing.  Another  leaves  everything  in  his  parish  at  loose  ends, 
while  he  continually  runs  off  to  conferences  on  the  betterment  of 
the  world  in  general  or  the  deepening  of  the  spiritual  life.  A 
third  has  a  passion  for  committees,  and  travels  all  over  the  coun- 
try (with  the  travelling  expenses  paid,  of  course)  to  attend  to 
various  affairs  in  the  management  of  his  communion  or  in  the 
work  of  some  board,  while  his  people  remain  unvisited  and  he 
never  devotes  a  week  to  personal  effort  for  the  unchurched  in  his 
immediate  neighborhood.  A  fourth  is  absorbed  in  sermon-writing 
and  in  literary  ventures,  but  neglects  the  organization  of  men 
and  women  to  carry  out  the  good  purposes  to  which  he  so  care- 
fully exhorts  them,  and,  while  he  coins  clever  phrases  about  the 
evangelization  of  the  world,  allows  the  missionary  programme  of 
his  congregation  to  go  unplanned.  He  that  ordereth  not  himself, 
how  shall  he  order  the  Church  of  God?  Theological  students  and 
young  ministers  have  often  set  down  in  their  diaries  an  entry  like 
that  which  Mr.  Gladstone  made  on  his  twenty-third  birthday: 


132  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

"In  future  I  hope  circumstances  will  bind  me  down  to  work  with 
a  rigor  which  my  natural  sluggishness  will  find  it  impossible  to 
elude."  But  a  minister  dare  not  trust  himself  to  the  constraint 
of  circumstances.  He  cannot  allow  himself  simply  to  respond 
to  demands  upon  him  as  they  come  along.  In  most  parishes  there 
are  too  few  insistent  demands  to  furnish  sufficient  pressure,  and 
in  every  parish  some  of  the  most  important  services  are  never 
demanded.  He  must  deliberately  plan  his  weeks  with  enough  to 
crowd  each  day ;  and  if  events  sometimes  force  him  to  make  room 
for  the  unexpected,  or  to  change  the  order  of  his  arrangements, 
he  will  usually  find  that  dogged  determination  will  carry  him 
through  the  entire  week's  work.  On  the  18th  of  December,  1519, 
Martin  Luther  wrote  from  Wittenberg  to  Spalatin:  "My  lec- 
tures on  the  Psalter  require  a  whole  man;  my  sermons  to  the 
people  on  the  Gospels  and  Genesis  need  another  whole  man;  a 
third  is  required  by  the  little  prayers  and  regulations  of  my 
Order;  a  fourth  might  do  this  work  you  ask,  not  to  mention  my 
correspondence  and  my  occupation  with  the  affairs  of  others, 
including  my  meeting  with  my  friends,  which  steals  so  much  of 
my  time  that  I  almost  think  it  wasted."  Obviously  such  a  man 
must  carefully  organize  himself,  as  Luther  certainly  did;  and 
when  a  minister  feels  that  he  ought  to  be  at  least  four  men,  then, 
and  perhaps  not  before,  he  is  putting  at  least  one  whole  man  at 
the  service  of  the  Church. 

Our  ministry  of  organization  must  meet  exacting  spiritual 
tests.  The  seer  on  Patmos  uses  a  striking  figure  which  scholars 
tell  us  he  borrowed  from  some  earlier  apocalypse  and  applied  in 
a  different  connexion,  and  which  we,  following  his  admirable 
example,  may  as  freely  apply  in  still  another.  "And  there  was 
given  unto  me,"  he  writes,  "a  reed  like  unto  a  rod;  and  one  said, 
Rise,  and  measure  the  temple  of  God,  and  the  altar,  and  them 
that  worship  therein."  These  are  measurements  which  every 
pastor  should  constantly  take  and  record:  First,  the  area  of 
the  temple — how  much  of  the  whole  life  of  the  congregation  and 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  ORGANIZATION  133 

their  world  is  included  within  the  hallowed  enclosure  in  which  they 
feel  themselves  in  fellowship  with  God?  Second,  the  altar — what 
are  the  dimensions  of  the  sacrificial  service  which  the  church  is 
expecting  and  receiving  from  them?  Third,  "and  them  that 
worship  therein" — how  large  are  they  in  mind,  heart  and  con- 
science? how  nearly  do  they,  corporately  and  severally,  approxi- 
mate the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ? 


LECTURE  VII 
THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP 

AN  urgent  task  of  economic  repair  is  the  equipment  and  training 
of  the  maimed  to  fill  some  useful  industry.  It  is  not  a  task  which 
can  be  done  wholesale.  Men  must  be  taken  one  by  one,  fitted  with 
an  artificial  limb  or  taught  to  perform  day  labor  light  denied. 
The  Church  has  a  similar  personal  ministry,  not  merely  to  the 
spiritually  crippled,  but  also  to  the  immature,  in  caring  for  them 
one  by  one  and  training  them  for  service  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
It  is  not  a  form  of  ministry  which  happens  to  be  popular  at  the 
moment.  The  pastoral  office  is  frequently  disparaged,  either  as 
antiquated  or  as  inferior  to  some  other  task.  It  is,  however, 
noteworthy  that  its  disparagement  does  not  come  from  congre- 
gations, who  invariably  crave  the  personal  interest  and  attention 
of  their  minister;  nor  from  those  ministers  who  give  themselves 
to  it,  and  know  what  it  means  to  their  preaching,  to  their  leader- 
ship of  the  Church's  work,  to  their  winning  and  training  dis- 
ciples of  Christ,  and  to  the  enrichment  of  their  own  souls.  But 
a  glance  after  twenty  years  at  the  list  of  one's  classmates  in  the 
theological  seminary  reveals  only  a  fraction  of  them  in  pastor- 
ates. Educational  and  philanthropic  institutions,  executive  posi- 
tions, divers  forms  of  social  service,  and  even  public  office,  have 
claimed  many  of  them.  There  are  various  ministries  which  require 
trained  religious  leaders,  and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the  Church 
and  of  her  schools  of  divinity  that  men  have  been  supplied  for  so 
many  sorts  of  service.  But  we  must  recognize  a  tendency  in  this 
day  of  interest  in  social  movements  to  belittle  the  unobtrusive 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  135 

and  most  draining  labor  of  caring  individually  for  men,  women 
and  little  children  in  their  life  with  God.  Not  much  is  made  of 
the  office  of  Mr.  Great-heart,  the  guide  of  the  widow  Christiana 
and  her  four  boys,  of  Mercy  and  Old  Honest  and  Ready-to-halt 
and  Feeble-mind;  who  helped  chicken-hearted  Mr.  Fearing  so  to 
manage  himself  that  he  made  no  stick  at  the  Hill  Difficulty,  and 
went  over  the  river  at  last  "not  much  above  wet-shod";  who 
rescued  Mr.  Despondency  and  his  daughter,  Much-afraid,  from 
Doubting  Castle;  and  who  led  his  company  on  the  Enchanted 
Ground,  where  it  was  "but  sorry  going  for  the  best  of  them,"  so 
that  "they  make  a  pretty  good  shift  to  wag  along."  Some  men 
appear  to  feel  that  they  are  accomplishing  bigger  things  if  they 
can  be  executive  secretaries  of  an  organization  representing  a 
"movement,"  with  a  business  office,  a  stenographer,  ambitious  sta- 
tionery, and  endless  "conferences,"  than  when  pulling  doorbells, 
and  climbing  stairs,  and  spending  almost  endless  time  looking 
after  the  spiritual  health  of  a  hundred  or  several  hundred  chil- 
dren of  God.  Let  us  quickly  grant  that  there  is  a  place  for 
both  lines  of  service,  but  let  us  also  realize  that  the  Church  of 
Christ  needs  a  hundred  or  more  pastors  to  every  secretary  and 
administrator.  There  is  often  something  pathetic  in  the  lives 
of  men  who  give  up  the  former  for  the  latter  type  of  ministry 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  doing  more  for  social  rebuilding. 
Not  a  few  of  them  find  themselves  like  Mrs.  Browning's  Romney 
Leigh, 

Who  thought  to  take  the  world  upon  his  back 
To  carry  it  o'er  a  chasm  of  social  ill, 
And  end  by  letting  slip  through  impotence 
A  single  soul,  a  child's  weight  in  a  soul, 
Straight  down  the  pit  of  hell. 

Some  of  the  ministers  of  our  large  churches  have  ceased  to  be 
shepherds  and  have  become  ranchers;  they  do  not  know  their 
sheep ;  they  know  only  their  number.  Other  ministers  who  would 


136  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

fain  be  pastors  fail  through  lack  of  preaching  talent,  for  men 
without  pulpit  power  rarely  succeed  in  having  people  wish  their 
pastoral  care.  But  more  fail  through  want  of  the  proper  endow- 
ment, which  we  may  roughly  summarize  as  a  genuine  interest  in 
human  beings,  approachableness,  and  a  contagious  Christian 
faith. 

For  what  is  a  Christian  pastor?  Various  metaphors  are  in 
use  to  describe  the  office.  Sometimes,  stressing  the  derivation  of 
the  word,  he  is  likened  to  a  shepherd;  but  rich  as  are  the  New 
Testament  phrases  that  employ  this  simile,  modern  men  and 
women  are  not  sheep,  and  American  boys  and  girls  hardly  lambs 
of  the  flock.  Sometimes  he  is  compared  to  a  general ;  but  a  Chris- 
tian congregation  is  and  ought  to  be  altogether  unlike  an  army, 
and  military  relations  are  usually  the  antithesis  of  those  en- 
couraged in  the  Gospel.  Sometimes  he  is  spoken  of  as  a  father, 
and  certain  communions  employ  that  title  for  their  clergy;  but 
it  very  ineptly  describes  the  relations  of  the  minister  of  Christ 
with  those  whom  He  calls  friends,  and  wishes  to  make  independent 
and  responsible  sons  and  daughters  of  God.  Sometimes  he  is 
called  a  master-builder,  which  is  suggestive,  and  might  seem  most 
appropriate  to  the  outlook  of  these  lectures  upon  social  recon- 
struction; but  it  is  inadequate  for  the  intensely  personal  rela- 
tions between  minister  and  people,  which  are  the  essence  of  the 
office.  The  minister  is  reshaping  society,  but  he  does  it  through 
a  company  of  men  and  women  with  whom  he  has  intimate  con- 
tacts. The  best  metaphor  for  the  pastoral  office  seems  to  be  that 
of  friendship.  A  minister's  relations  with  his  own  congregation 
and  with  outsiders  whom  he  may  touch,  his  leadership,  his  author- 
ity, his  influence,  are  most  akin  to  those  of  a  close  friend.  And  he 
must  be  a  unique  kind  of  friend ;  let  me  describe  him  as  a  trusted, 
inspired,  trained,  and  accredited  friend  at  large. 

First,  he  must  be  trusted.  His  earliest  duty  on  entering  his 
parish  is  to  win  men's  confidence,  and  his  last  is  to  hold  that 
confidence  unshaken  to  the  end.  Confidence  is  not  something  one 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  137 

can  set  out  to  gain ;  it  comes  unsought  to  whoso  deserves  it.  The 
authoress  of  John  Halifax  describes  her  hero  in  words  that  should 
be  applicable  to  every  man  whom  his  fellows  call  to  be  their 
pastor:  "I  knew  from  every  tone  of  his  voice,  every  chance  ex- 
pression of  his  honest  eyes,  that  he  was  one  of  those  characters 
in  which  we  may  be  sure  that  for  each  feeling  they  express  lies  a 
countless  wealth  of  the  same,  unexpressed,  below;  a  character 
the  keystone  of  which  was  that  whereon  is  built  all  liking  and 
all  love — dependableness.  He  is  one  whom  you  may  be  long  in 
knowing,  but  whom  the  more  you  know,  the  more  you  trust ;  and 
once  trusting,  you  trust  forever."  The  tragedies  of  the  ministry 
come  when  the  faith  of  his  people  in  their  minister's  character  is 
shattered.  Some  gainful  business  venture  on  which  he  has  em- 
barked with  the  same  acquisitiveness  and  probably  with  less  judg- 
ment in  such  matters  than  other  men,  and,  worse  yet,  a  business 
venture  in  which  he  induces  some  of  those  who  trust  him  to  invest ; 
some  moral  lapse — in  truthfulness,  in  sobriety,  in  self-control ; 
some  insidious  fault  allowed  to  grow  unchecked — conceit,  laziness, 
colossal  selfishness ;  some  trait  which  taints  that  all-important 
thing,  his  atmosphere — worldliness,  cynicism,  flippancy — and 
their  confidence  in  him  is  shipwrecked.  Nor  can  he  hold  their 
trust  if  they  feel  him  remiss  in  fidelity  to  them.  One  of  the 
parishioners  of  John  Knox  in  England,  and  later  in  Geneva,  Mrs. 
Locke,  had  evidently  written,  complaining  of  her  pastor's  negli- 
gence in  writing  to  her ;  and  in  the  course  of  his  reply,  Knox  says 
of  himself:  "Of  nature  I  am  churlish,  and  in  conditions  different 
from  many:  Yet  one  thing  I  ashame  not  to  affirme,  that  familiar- 
ite  once  thoroughlie  contracted  was  never  yet  brocken  by  my 
default.  The  cause  may  be  that  I  have  rather  need  of  all  then 
that  any  hath  need  of  me."  There  speaks  a  genuine  pastor — one 
who  having  given  himself  to  his  people  is  henceforth  theirs.  They 
may  be  exacting  (as  this  woman  evidently  was),  or  cranky?  or 
exasperating,  or  discouraging,  or  disagreeable.  Still  they  are  his 
people,  and  he  needs  them;  he  and  they  belong  to  each  other  in 


138  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

fellowship.     A  pastor's  first  obligation  is  to  be  a  trustworthy  and 
faithful  man. 

Second,  he  must  be  inspired,  and  obviously  inspired — a  mani- 
fest man  of  God.  Other  men  may  supply  other  things  which  a 
pastor  furnishes  incidentally — friendliness,  counsel,  stimulus, 
sympathy,  idealism;  his  singular  contribution  is  conscious  fellow- 
ship with  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ  in  His  Church.  He 
must  be  able  to  talk  of  the  things  of  the  Spirit  frankly  and 
naturally.  He  must  be  sufficiently  intimate  with  the  Most  High 
to  introduce  another  to  His  friendship.  He  must  have  the  cour- 
age, the  tact,  and  the  vital  touch  with  Christ,  to  talk  face  to  face 
with  a  man  of  his  personal  relation  to  God.  He  must  so  dwell 
in  the  secret  place  that  men  feel  that  he  belongs  there,  and  can 
help  them  to  enter.  Closeness  to  the  heart  of  God  carries  one 
farthest  into  the  hearts  of  men.  Pompilia  had  met  several  ecclesi- 
astics, but  she  found  a  pastor  in  Canon  Caponssachi.  The  Other 
Half  Rome  put  into  her  mouth  the  words : 

I  spoke  to  my  companion,  told  him  much, 
Knowing  that  he  knew  more,  knew  me,  knew  God, 
And  God's  disposal  of  me. 

The  sharing  of  God's  sympathy  with  men  is  necessary  for  that 
self-detachment  which  enables  a  man,  whatever  his  personal  cir- 
cumstances at  the  moment,  to  devote  himself  unreservedly  to 
his  people's  needs.  Anthony  Trollope  has  drawn  a  memorable 
portrait  of  his  mother,  that  remarkable  woman  who  to  support 
a  dependent  family  began  writing  fiction,  without  previous  literary 
experience,  at  the  mature  age  of  fifty,  and  produced  one  hundred 
and  fourteen  saleable  novels  before  she  ceased  writing  at  seventy- 
six.  He  describes  her  sitting  by  a  son's  bedside,  who  was  dying 
of  consumption,  caring  tenderly  for  his  wants,  and  at  the  same 
time  going  on  indefatigably  penning  the  stories  of  her  characters. 
He  tells  us  that  "she  could  dance  with  other  people's  legs,  eat 
and  drink  with  other  people's  palates,  be  proud  with  the  lustre 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  139 

of  other  people's  finery."  A  similar  leisure  from  self  and  identifi- 
cation of  one's  self  with  others  is  necessary  in  a  pastor  who  is 
constantly  helping  several  hundred  people  to  write  their  lives  as 
epistles  of  Christ.  Inspiration,  whether  literary  or  scientific  or 
pastoral,  carries  a  man  out  of  himself  and  into  his  work.  The 
secret  of  its  acquisition  for  the  Christian  pastor  lies  in  his  enter- 
ing through  Christ  into  the  Father's  absorbing  interest  in  those 
sons  and  daughters  committed  to  his  care.  "He  that  dwelleth 
in  love  dwelleth  in  God  and  God  in  him." 

Third,  he  must  be  trained.  Lord  Lister  used  to  say:  "To 
intrude  an  unskilled  hand  into  such  a  piece  of  divine  mechanism 
as  the  human  body  is  indeed  a  fearful  responsibility."  What 
shall  we  say  of  the  even  more  delicate  spiritual  nature?  There 
are  general  principles  concerning  the  connexion  of  the  spirit  and 
the  body,  and  of  mental  health  and  spiritual  sanity,  which  every 
minister  should  be  taught.  There  are  laws  of  spiritual  growth 
and  of  spiritual  vigor  with  which  he  ought  to  be  familiar.  His 
course  in  pastoral  theology  should  cover  the  treatment  of  repre- 
sentative cases  of  spiritual  need.  But  experience  is  the  only 
teacher  that  will  supply  him  with  the  knack  of  discerning  quickly 
a  man's  lack,  and  the  greater  knack  of  knowing  how  to  meet  it. 
Lord  Lister  (to  quote  again  that  eminent  representative  of  a 
kindred  calling)  said  that  "a  feeling  heart  is  the  first  requisite 
of  a  surgeon,"  and  it  is  an  indispensable  requisite  of  a  pastor, 
giving  him  touch  or  tact;  but,  like  the  surgeon,  he  must  possess 
the  further  skill  to  diagnose  the  cause  of  trouble  and  deftness  in 
helping  the  patient  himself  to  remove  it.  With  most  pastors  this 
skill  is  an  intuition,  the  unconscious  outgrowth  of  observation, 
thought  and  prayer;  and  they  will  agree  with  the  son  of  Sirach 
that 

A  man's  soul  is  sometimes  wont  to  bring  him  tidings 

More  than  seven  watchmen  that  sit  on  high  on  a  watch-tower. 

A  pastor  ought   to   have  enough   of  his  Bible  and   of  the  lines 


140  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

of  a  few  rich  hymns  at  his  tongue's  end  for  use  in  the  sickroom, 
at  the  deathbed,  in  the  house  of  mourning,  and  with  various 
cases  of  spiritual  illness  in  the  physically  well.  He  must  know 
what  to  say  when  men  and  women  want  that  which  will  link  them 
with  the  living  God.  These  friends  come  to  us  from  life's  journey, 
knocking  confidently  at  our  door,  and  we  abuse  their  trust  if 
we  have  nothing  to  set  before  them.  A  lad  of  seventeen,  dying 
in  a  city  hospital,  had  his  pastor  sent  for  at  midnight,  and 
explained  when  he  arrived  that  he  wanted  someone  by  him  "who 
was  experienced" — yes,  experienced  in  God  and  in  strengthening 
men  in  Him.  He  wanted  one  who  could  put  his  hand,  from  which 
everything  was  slipping,  into  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High. 
A  minister  of  Christ  must  not  disappoint  that  expectation. 

Fourth,  he  is  accredited.  That  is  the  meaning  of  his  ordina- 
tion. The  historic  Church,  through  some  duly  constituted  agent, 
representing  theoretically  the  whole  Church  of  Christ — a  council, 
a  bishop,  a  presbytery — sets  apart  this  man  by  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  and  delegates  to  him  as  an  authorized  representative  the 
priestly  function,  which  belongs  to  the  entire  body  of  believers, 
that  he  may  stand  before  the  world  declared  competent  to  min- 
ister the  life  with  Christ  in  God.  Further,  there  is  usually  an 
act  of  installation  by  which  he  is  assigned,  on  the  election,  or  with 
the  consent  of  a  congregation,  to  lead  them,  and  they  place  them- 
selves and  theirs  under  his  care.  He  bears  the  imprimatur  of  the 
universal  Church  and  is  marked  by  the  choice  of  a  Christian 
company  as  fitted  to  establish  the  touch  with  God. 

The  pastor  is  a  trusted,  inspired,  trained,  accredited  friend, 
and  he  is  a  friend  at  large.  It  is  no  easy  undertaking  to  be  a  true 
friend  to  a  hundred  persons.  Let  a  minister  be  thankful  if  his 
first  charge  be  a  reasonably  small  one.  Should  he  find  himself 
required  to  become  the  friend  of  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand, 
he  will  need  the  intensive  training  with  the  few  to  enable  him  to 
keep  his  relations  with  the  many  really  personal.  And  no  congre- 
gation in  calling  a  man  to  be  their  minister  restricts  his  work  to 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  141 

themselves,  and  no  ecclesiastical  body  in  installing  him  in  a  charge 
confines  him  to  its  recognized  parishioners.  His  pastoral  office 
is  a  public  position  which  places  him  at  the  call  of  the  community. 
He  is  supported  by  the  church  that  he  may  with  them,  and  as 
their  special  representative,  embody  the  friendliness  of  Jesus  and 
be  approachable,  as  was  his  Master,  by  any  who  come  to  him 
craving  God.  What  function  has  larger  social  value  than  this, 
if  truly  filled? — A  large  if,  for,  as  one  of  the  early  Puritan 
chroniclers  says  of  the  Reverend  Ralph  Smith,  sent  over  to  share 
the  pastoral  charge  at  Plymouth  with  Elder  Brewster,  "many 
times  it  is  found  that  a  total  vacancy  of  an  office  is  easier  to  be 
borne  than  an  under-performance  thereof." 

A  pastor's  chief  means  of  discharging  his  obligations  of  friend- 
ship are  visitation  and  consultation. 

It  is  somewhat  the  vogue  to  sneer  at  the  custom  of  making 
pastoral  calls  as  obsolete.  They  consume  a  vast  amount  of  time 
in  merely  going  about  from  house  to  house,  and  they  may  often 
seem  barren  of  result.  But  no  substitute  is  offered  us  for  estab- 
lishing personal  relations  with  our  people  in  their  homes — an 
essential  social  relation  to  enable  us  to  bind  families  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  church.  A  pastor  must  take  in  hand  this  duty  with 
system,  planning  his  week  so  that  on  different  days,  if  possible, 
he  sets  aside  different  hours  for  the  purpose,  and  so  finds  at 
liberty  persons  whose  times  of  leisure  vary,  and  arranging  his 
calls  so  that  he  sees  the  men  as  well  as  the  more  home-keeping 
women.  And  where  people  can  scarcely  ever  be  found  at  home, 
very  effective  calls  can  often  be  made  on  them  at  their  places  of 
work — in  the  noon  hour  in  a  factory  where  a  group  are  eating 
their  lunch  or  at  the  least  rushed  periods  in  offices  and  shops.  A 
pastor  must  be  scrupulously  careful  to  overlook  nobody. 

He  has  definite  aims  before  him  in  such  systematic  calling.  He 
is  finding  out  of  what  his  people  are  thinking,  and  how  they  fare ; 
he  is  learning  of  members  of  families  and  their  acquaintances  who 
need  the  church's  special  attention;  he  is  giving  his  people  a 


142  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

chance  to  ask  him  questions,  to  tell  him  wants,  and  to  offer  sug- 
gestions on  the  church's  work.  He  is  discovering  unused  re- 
sources in  men  and  women,  and  will  carry  them  on  his  mind,  and 
perhaps  enter  their  names  in  a  notebook,  and  study  to  employ 
them  for  the  Kingdom.  He  is  looking  up  the  careless,  and  bring- 
ing in  himself  the  church  to  those  who  have  forgotten  it.  He  is 
helping  timid  and  retiring  persons  by  his  friendly  visit  to  realize 
something  of  the  fellowship  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  which  they 
are  in  danger  of  missing.  He  is  after  men  and  women  who  do 
not  come  to  listen  to  her  sermons,  or  come  rarely,  and,  if  occasion 
serves,  he  will  say  to  them  face  to  face  a  very  little  of  what  he 
would  have  said  from  the  pulpit,  but  that  little  a  hundred  times 
more  effectively  because  there  is  no  need  of  a  voice  to  add,  "Thou 
art  the  man."  He  is  giving  his  people  the  opportunity  to  share 
with  him  their  anxieties  and  interests ;  and  as  the  years  go  by 
and  he  wears  into  their  friendship,  there  will  be  little  of  moment 
untold  to  him.  He  is  acquainting  them  more  fully  with  the 
church's  work,  or  with  its  missionary  enterprise,  or  with  some 
plan  for  social  advance  in  the  community.  He  is  dropping  a  few 
thoughts,  which  because  they  come  from  him  are  the  likelier  to  be 
repeated,  which  influence  people's  views,  and  affect  their  outlooks 
upon  God  and  man.  He  is  looking  over  his  people  to  keep  him- 
self posted  as  to  their  needs,  that  he  may  intelligently  preach, 
and  pray  and  plan  the  church's  work.  Ministers  who  visit  faith- 
fully bear  witness  how  many  of  their  sermons,  prayers  and 
projects  are  born  in  their  calls.  No  pastor  ought  to  live  for 
long  out  of  sight  of  the  words  penned  to  describe  his  predecessors 
in  the  early  day,  and  which  ought  to  be  as  applicable  to  him: 
"They  watch  for  your  souls,  as  they  that  shall  give  account." 

If  the  congregation  be  representative  of  many  social  groups 
in  the  community,  this  visiting  of  the  pastor  in  the  houses  of  the 
wealthy  and  the  few  rooms  of  the  poor,  entering  the  front  door 
to  see  employers  and  the  back  door  to  call  on  servants,  dropping 
in  on  a  man  of  affairs  in  his  office  and  stopping  for  a  few  minutes 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  143 

to  see  a  stenographer  or  clerk  or  office-boy,  has  a  unifying  effect. 
Without  his  being  aware  of  it,  he  carries  the  point  of  view  of  one 
to  another,  as  bees  carry  fertilizing  pollen  from  plant  to  plant. 
In  the  background  of  his  conversation,  and  sometimes  in  the  fore- 
ground, will  be  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  those  differently  cir- 
cumstanced. His  own  mind  becomes  hospitable  to  many  not  easily 
combined  opinions  and  interests,  and  he  is  fitted  to  interpret  men 
to  each  other — no  small  social  service  today.  Like  a  shuttle  in  a 
loom,  he  is  constantly  passing  and  repassing  over  the  else  un- 
related strands  of  lives,  and  weaving  them  together  as  one  fellow- 
ship with  a  distinctive  pattern  to  display  to  the  community.  In 
the  inclusive  friendship  of  this  friend  at  large,  those  who  other- 
wise might  never  understand  each  other  meet,  and  meet  as  mutual 
friends  of  Christ. 

Besides  his  systematic  visitation  in  which,  so  far  as  may  be, 
he  seeks  to  cover  every  family  and  the  stray  individuals  in  his 
parish,  he  must  hold  himself  ready  for  calls  where  there  is  special 
need.  When  he  hears  of  serious  illness,  he  shows  his  friendliness 
by  a  visit  of  inquiry;  and  in  cases  of  long  and  dangerous  sick- 
ness a  minister's  calls  can  sometimes  mean  as  much  and  more  than 
the  physician's.  There  is  a  common  fallacy  that  sickness  is  sanc- 
tifying; it  is  almost  always  the  reverse.  It  "enlarges  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  man's  self  to  himself,"  as  Charles  Lamb  well  said;  it 
often  weakens  his  self-control  and  makes  him  childishly  irritable 
and  unreasonable.  A  long  illness  has  to  be  "managed,"  if  a  man 
is  not  to  deteriorate  in  it.  It  is  a  form  of  war,  and  exhausts  re- 
sources. A  minister  who  knows  how  can  in  a  few  untiring  min- 
utes restore  or  strengthen  the  contact  with  God,  and  perhaps 
furnish  thoughts  and  suggestions  that  will  maintain  a  man 
through  tedious  days  and  more  dreaded  nights  of  weakness  and 
discomfort.  Occasionally  (although  not  very  often  under  modern 
medical  practice  by  which  men  are  mercifully  helped  to  slip  out 
of  life  in  sleep)  a  pastor  will  be  by  when  a  life  sets  out  into  the 
Beyond.  He  will  have  at  command  some  large,  divine,  and  com- 


144  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

fortable  words,  such  as  "The  eternal  God  is  thy  dwelling-place, 
and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms ;"  "When  thou  passest 
through  the  waters,  I  will  be  with  thee;  and  through  the  rivers, 
they  shall  not  overflow  thee;"  "He  that  dwelleth  in  the  secret 
place  of  the  Most  High  shall  abide  under  the  shadow  of  the  Al- 
mighty;" "Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace  whose  mind  is 
stayed  on  Thee ;  because  he  trusteth  in  Thee ;"  "Verily,  I  say  unto 
thee,  Today  shalt  thou  be  with  Me  in  Paradise,"  and  above  all 
the  first  few  verses  of  the  Fourteenth  Chapter  of  John  and  the 
concluding  verses  of  the  Eighth  of  Romans.  And  he  will  be  spar- 
ing of  any  words  of  his  own  to  the  dying,  but  will  kneel  and  speak 
with  him  to  God. 

He  will  wish  to  be  with  his  people  in  their  sorrow  to  share  their 
first  thoughts  of  grief — stunned,  bewildered  thoughts ;  and  to  be 
with  them  again  in  the  more  bleak  and  lonely  second  thoughts  of 
grief.  His  task  is  one  of  social  building — assuring  them  that  the 
Christian  dead  are  with  God  and  that  God  is  in  closest  fellow- 
ship with  themselves,  so  that  He  binds  the  living  yonder  and  the 
living  here  in  one  enduring  home,  and  they  are  still  with  their 
dead  in  God.  What  more  truly  social  service  can  any  man  ren- 
der than  to  set  lives  into  the  holy  communion  of  heaven  and 
earth  ? 

He  will  wish  to  be  with  His  people  in  experiences  far  more  bit- 
ter than  death — tragic  experiences  of  shame,  when  love  lies  dead, 
crucified  by  disloyalty,  or  when  trust  has  been  abused,  or  when 
a  sinful  habit  has  brought  disgrace  and  ruin.  He  is  the  minister 
of  One  who  can  do  the  impossible,  and  is  to  inspire  with  the  love 
which  beareth,  believeth,  hopeth,  endureth  all  and  never  faileth. 
And  when  such  love  suffers  on  its  Calvary,  he  is  to  hold  his  people 
through  the  darkness  that  covers  their  world  to  One  under  whose 
control  all  things,  and  none  more  conspicuously  than  the  cross 
itself,  work  together  for  good  unto  them  that  love  Him, 

He  will  wish  to  be  with  his  people  also  in  their  happinesses — 
when  the  coming  of  a  little  child  has  made  a  father  and  mother 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  145 

peculiarly  impressionable  and  eager  to  be  worthy  of  their  new 
trust;  when  some  long  absent  member  of  a  family  has  been  re- 
stored; when  son  or  daughter  has  attained  an  honor  or  a  great 
happiness ;  when  a  new  home  is  set  up.  God  opens  doors  to 
hearts  by  joys  as  well  as  by  sorrows;  they  unbar  the  beautiful 
gate  of  the  temple;  and  the  pastor  will  want  to  be  there  when 
the  portals  are  wide,  to  help  by  his  friendliness  the  unseen  Friend 
to  pass  in.  Great  gladnesses  and  great  sadnesses  are  both  of 
them  unsettling  experiences;  he  who  would  rebuild  society  after 
the  heavenly  pattern  finds  lives  loosened  to  the  conventional  and 
habitual,  and  can  try  to  readjust  them  to  God,  that,  when  they 
settle  again,  they  are  in  more  kindly  and  strengthening  touch 
with  their  fellows  in  their  Father's  big  family. 

A  look  over  the  list  of  one's  congregation  always  discloses  an- 
other set  of  names — the  lapsed  and  the  never-yet-won.  In  many 
a  home  there  is  one  who  has  lost  an  earlier  religious  interest — a 
son  or  daughter,  once  a  regular  Sunday  School  scholar  now  never 
seen  inside  the  church  door,  some  former  member  who  was  hurt 
by  an  unfortunate  incident  or  quarrelled  with  a  member  of  the 
church,  a  man  who  has  become  so  immersed  in  his  affairs  that  he 
is  stifling  his  soul,  a  woman  who  fancies  she  has  attained  a  superior 
mental  position  from  which  she  can  look  down  on  the  old-fashioned 
ways  of  church  folk.  Let  a  minister  every  now  and  again  sally 
forth  after  a  half  dozen  such  most  difficult  persons.  He  will 
find  them  discouraging.  Even  that  stout  and  valiant  conductor, 
Mr.  Great-heart,  told  of  failures  with  Slow-pace,  and  one  Short- 
wind,  and  one  No-heart,  and  one  Linger-after-lust,  and  one 
Sleepy-head,  and  the  young  woman  named  Dull ;  and  for  all  his 
shaking  he  could  not  rouse  Heedless  and  Too-bold  in  their  arbor 
on  the  Enchanted  Ground.  A  pastor  will  be  tempted  to  think  his 
time  and  effort  thrown  away;  but  occasionally  sheer  friendliness 
has  a  surprising  reward.  And  about  every  congregation  there 
is  a  fringe  of  men  and  women  who  are  related  to  the  church  "by 
marriage,"  or  through  their  children,  or  by  some  slight  contact 


146  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

which  makes  it  probable  that  in  the  event  of  their  dying  its  pastor 
will  be  asked  to  conduct  their  funerals,  but  who  themselves  have 
no  personal  connexion  with  Christ  in  His  Church.  It  is  a  good 
plan  to  set  aside  a  whole  week  every  few  months  to  going  after 
persons  of  this  description.  .One  must  not  expect  large  results; 
these  are  the  impossibles  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  know  them. 
They  may  not  be  bad  people;  often  they  are  fairly  good;  but 
they  have  settled  into  an  unreligious  life.  One  can  never  tell, 
however,  when  some  circumstance  may  have  affected  them  and 
turned  their  minds  into  new  paths ;  and  the  attempt  to  keep 
friendly  with  them,  and,  when  possible,  to  deal  frankly  with  them, 
is  always  worth  making.  A  pastor  has  to  learn  that  spiritual 
effort  is  never  wasted:  "If  a  son  of  peace  be  there,  your  peace 
shall  rest  upon  him :  but  if  not,  it  shall  turn  to  you  again." 

A  call  ought  usually  to  be  brief,  for  its  point  can  be  lost  in 
desultory  conversation.  A  man  must  have  skill  in  guiding  the 
talk  so  that  real  needs  are  easily  told.  He  must  himself  be  nat- 
urally frank  in  speaking  of  God,  and  he  ought  not  to  allow  the 
conversation  to  be  mere  chatter  about  nothing  that  matters. 
There  are  connexions  in  which  things  of  moment  will  come  out; 
it  is  his  business  to  take  the  line  of  talk  which  will  bring  them 
out,  if  they  are  there.  When  it  seems  appropriate  and  the  occa- 
sion serves,  he  will  offer  prayer,  and  then  immediately  leave,  for 
all  subsequent  conversation  is  an  anticlimax.  Our  predecessors 
may  have  erred  in  praying  too  often,  and  in  turning  a  friendly 
visit  into  a  formal  and  professional  call.  Our  danger  lies  in  the 
opposite  direction.  We  are  likely  to  make  the  mistake  of  not 
linking  our  people  directly  with  God,  when  they  really  wish  us  to 
help  them  to  Him.  One  is  aware  that  he  has  erred  at  least  ten 
times  more  often  in  not  offering  to  pray,  than  in  suggesting  it 
when  it  was  not  wise.  Wherever  there  is  a  reason  for  prayer — 
illness,  sorrow,  perplexity,  responsibility,  a  great  joy — we  do 
well  to  kneel  with  our  people.  A  pastor's  relation  with  a  family 
or  with  an  individual  is  always  much  closer  after  he  has  been  with 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  147 

them  in  the  presence  of  God.  And  there  are  many  circumstances 
when  frankness  in  conversation  is  extremely  difficult,  and  when 
prayer  makes  possible  plainness  of  speech  before  Him  who  know- 
eth  all  things. 

A  pastor  will  also  keep  a  list  of  the  shut-ins  among  his  people, 
and  plan  to  visit  them  fairly  often.  There  will  be  no  question  as 
to  the  appropriateness  of  prayer  on  such  visits,  for  they  welcome 
it.  And  he  will  arrange  to  keep  with  them  from  time  to  time  the 
Supper  of  the  Lord — symbol  of  their  communion  with  Him  and 
His  Church  universal. 

And  there  is  scarcely  a  time  when  a  pastor  does  not  have  on 
his  heart  the  difficulties  of  some  of  his  people,  which  he  must  de- 
cide whether  it  is  wiser  for  him  to  notice  or  to  treat  as  though 
they  were  not — a  husband  and  wife  jarring  on  each  other,  a  son 
or  daughter  at  odds  with  parents,  friends  discording,  a  family 
divided  over  money  matters,  or  an  unrelished  marriage,  men  in 
business  straits.  It  requires  a  delicate  tact  to  know  when  to 
intrude,  and  when  to  seem  unaware  of  the  difficulty.  Friendli- 
ness is  happily  never  out  of  place,  and  when  one  knows  of  a 
heavy  strain,  one  can  take  pains  to  keep  within  easy  reach  and 
to  render  one's  self  accessible. 

A  pastor's  friendly  visits  are  as  potent  as  any  form  of  the 
church's  ministry  in  building  and  holding  securely  together  the 
fellowship ;  and  it  is  through  the  fellowship  that  a  world  is  to  be 
rebuilt. 

A  pastor's  other  means  of  offering  his  friendship  is  by  placing 
himself  at  his  people's  disposal  for  consultation.  In  churches  of 
any  size  a  minister  ought  to  keep  an  hour  or  more  each  week 
when  people  can  come  to  him  freely  without  fear  of  intruding. 
We  have  to  take  the  risk  of  cranks  and  bores,  learning  how  to 
manage  them  as  painlessly  as  possible,  in  order  to  hold  ourselves 
at  liberty  for  those  who  really  need  us.  And  as  time  passes  the 
number  of  people  who  come  to  a  friendly  pastor  ever  increases. 
He  needs  to  learn  how  to  keep  his  mind  hospitable,  not  to  talk 


148  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

too  much,  and  to  be  an  inviting  listener.  Let  him  hear  them  sym- 
pathetically, and  he  helps  many  persons  by  simply  allowing  them 
to  talk  themselves  out.  He  will  by  no  means  always  give  people 
the  sympathy  they  crave :  many  wish  their  weaknesses  condoned, 
or  their  conceit  inflated,  or  their  consciences  soothed  to  com- 
fortable sleep;  and  his  kindly  silence  will  provide  a  mirror  in 
which  they  will  see  themselves  and  be  chastened.  Friendly  silence 
does  marvels.  Ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  questions  answer 
themselves  when  once  a  perplexed  mind  states  the  question  fully 
to  another.  "Certain  it  is,"  says  Bacon,  "that  whosoever  hath  his 
mind  fraught  with  many  thoughts,  his  wits  and  understanding 
do  clarify  and  break  up  in  the  communicating  and  discoursing 
with  another ;  he  tosseth  his  thoughts  more  easily ;  he  marshalleth 
them  more  orderly;  he  seeth  how  they  look  when  they  are  turned 
into  words ;  finally,  he  waxeth  wiser  than  himself."  Some  angry 
or  aggrieved  persons  have  their  bosoms  charged  with  perilous 
stuff,  and  it  is  no  small  service  to  the  church,  and  to  the  com- 
munity, and  to  their  relatives  and  friends,  if  vicariously  a  min- 
ister receives  the  outburst,  and  can  persuade  them  to  let  the 
matter  remain  between  him  and  them.  Others  wish  to  shift  the 
responsibility  for  moral  decisions  to  other  shoulders,  and  he  will 
be  careful  to  keep  the  load  where  it  ought  to  be  strapped.  Others 
again  sincerely  want  light  in  which  to  make  up  their  own  minds, 
and  he  will  furnish  them  unreservedly  all  he  possesses. 

Those  who  consult  a  minister  often  have  an  amazing  confidence 
in  his  wisdom — others  naturally  do  not  take  the  trouble  to  come 
to  him — and  he  must  guard  himself  against  seeming  wise  beyond 
that  which  he  really  knows  (a  very  subtle  temptation).  Some 
congregations,  and  some  members  of  almost  every  congregation, 
are  foolish  enough  to  wish  to  consider  their  minister  a  peripatetic 
omniscience;  and  unfortunately  some  ministers  are  sufficiently 
idiotic  to  be  willing  to  attempt  the  part. 

Most  persons,  however,  consult  their  pastor  because  they  feel 
that  he  will  look  at  their  problems  disinterestedly,  and  because  they 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  149 

trust  him  for  a  conscientiousness  that  will  reinforce  their  high- 
est intuitions.  Let  him  give  them  the  right  to  feel  themselves 
entirely  safe  with  him,  by  his  honesty,  his  fidelity  in  keeping 
secrets,  his  charity  which  makes  it  needless  for  them  to  weigh 
thoughts  and  measure  words,  and  possible  to  pour  all  out  just  as 
they  come.  As  a  rule  he  will  be  chary  of  offering  detailed  advice ; 
his  main  purpose  is  not  to  supply  counsel,  but  to  educate  con- 
sciences. Let  him  make  sure  that  he  helps  those  who  come  to 
him  to  a  Christian  point  of  view,  so  that  they  see  their  families, 
or  their  friends,  or  their  enemies,  or  their  business  relations,  or 
their  church  responsibilities,  or  their  own  inward  thoughts  and 
moods  and  feelings,  in  the  light  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  let  him  re- 
spect the  sanctity  of  their  consciences,  and  believe  that  God  will 
speak  in  them  His  guiding  word.  Above  all  let  him  see  to  it  that 
he  does  his  utmost  to  fasten  everyone  who  comes  to  him  to  God; 
sometimes  this  will  be  most  fittingly  done  by  a  prayer,  oftener 
by  a  sentence  or  two  and  a  friendly  handshake — symbol  of  the 
clasp  of  the  hand  of  the  All-Wise. 

Can  we  overestimate  the  social  significance  of  the  presence  in 
a  community  of  a  man  to  whom  people  may  go  freely  to  be  helped 
to  adjust  themselves  usefully  to  their  fellows  in  God? 

The  Church  has  no  higher  service  than  this  ministry  of  friend- 
ship. It  seems  the  distinctively  Christian  method  of  rebuilding 
human  society  into  the  Kingdom  of  heaven.  The  Saviour  of  the 
world  became  the  Friend  of  a  few  hundred  sinners.  He  chose  a 
dozen  of  them  "that  they  might  be  with  Him ;"  their  relationship 
to  Him  He  summed  up  in  the  words:  "I  have  called  you  friends," 
and  His  relationship  to  them:  "Greater  love  hath  no  man  than 
this  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends."  On  their  friend- 
ship with  Him  and  with  one  another  He  staked  everything  when 
He  trusted  them  with  His  mission  to  renew  the  earth.  The  cen- 
tral rite  of  the  Church  is  a  festival  of  friendship,  where  the  break- 
ing of  bread  and  the  sharing  of  the  sacrificial  cup  symbolize  the 
union  of  the  believing  company  with  their  really  present  Lord, 


150  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

with  one  another  and  with  all  His  friends  in  earth  and  heaven. 
His  chief  apostle  concludes  his  letters  with  greetings  to  men  and 
women  by  name,  that  disclose  how  much  of  his  broad  and  lasting 
work  was  accomplished  by  his  personal  relations  with  individuals. 
A  church's  fidelity  to  its  Lord  cannot  be  more  accurately  tested 
than  by  its  friendliness.  We  have  been  speaking  as  though  this 
ministry  were  peculiarly  that  of  the  pastor,  but  he  is  the  leader 
of  a  coalition  of  friends.  John  Henry  Newman  gave  a  sermon, 
preached  in  his  Anglican  days,  the  suggestive  title :  The  Church  a 
Home  for  the  Lonely,  and  every  church  ought  to  deserve  the 
name.  Does  it  draw  lines  of  caste  and  class?  Or,  if  it  does  not 
intentionally  draw  them,  does  it  permit  them  to  remain  as  bar- 
riers to  children  of  God?  Does  it  organize  its  friendliness,  so 
that  no  one  to  whom  it  ought  to  be  shown  is  overlooked?  Is  it 
including  a  world-wide  circle  within  the  scope  of  its  friendship, 
and  serving  them  in  the  missionary  enterprise — that  most  signal 
and  promising  friendly  undertaking  to  bind  the  peoples  in  fel- 
lowship? Has  it  a  name  for  corporate  friendliness  in  the  com- 
munity? Does  it  espouse  causes  that  need  backing,  and  give  a 
sympathetic  hearing  to  those  who  think  themselves  ill-used?  Do 
the  wronged  go  to  it  for  help  in  their  battle  for  justice?  Is  it 
quick  to  furnish  any  service  the  community  lacks,  however 
remotely  related  it  may  seem  with  a  church's  conventional 
activities  ? 

We  were  speaking  in  the  last  lecture  of  the  place  in  the  church's 
organization  of  more  than  one  employed  minister.  It  is  this  min- 
istry of  friendship  with  its  many  personal  contacts  which  de- 
mands the  multiplication  of  ministers.  Volunteers  can  do  much 
of  it.  Office-bearers  should  be  recalled  to  the  standards  set  before 
them  in  an  earlier  day  and  be  assigned  a  number  of  persons  to 
befriend.  The  women  of  a  congregation  can  be  used  to  extend  its 
welcome  to  newcomers  in  the  community  and  to  do  other  calling. 
Every  Sunday  School  teacher  should  be  a  friend  not  only  of  his 
or  her  pupils,  but  also  of  their  families ;  such  cooperation  alone 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  151 

renders  teaching  effective.  But  in  our  urban  communities,  and 
in  some  of  our  rural  districts,  particularly  where  industrialism 
heaps  together  a  large  and  not  very  intelligent  and  self-sufficient 
population,  a  church  finds  the  services  of  deaconesses  and  the 
work  of  men  trained  as  are  the  secretaries  of  our  Christian  Asso- 
ciations an  invaluable  supplement  to  the  work  of  its  pastor.  In- 
deed, apart  from  the  social  groups  they  organize  and  lead,  and 
the  personal  ministries  they  constantly  render  to  those  who  come 
with  an  endless  assortment  of  wants,  a  pastor  in  such  communi- 
ties is  well-nigh  helpless.  We  can  plead  for  a  reorganization  of 
the  Church,  both  because  its  unification  will  do  away  with  sec- 
tarian rivalries  and  make  it  a  genuine  fellowship,  and  because 
the  combination  of  small  organizations  will  enable  the  enlarged 
fellowship  to  support  more  workers  and  to  give  an  augmented 
ministry  of  friendship  to  its  neighborhood. 

If  the  pastor  is  to  lead  such  a  friendly  fellowship,  he  must  be 
friend-in-chief.  The  name  holds  up  a  guiding  ideal.  It  warns 
him  against  the  tendency  to  domineer  over  his  church.  Prophets 
are  not  always  easy  to  get  on  with;  they  are  usually  individual- 
ists at  the  expense  of  the  development  of  the  organization.  Let 
him  be  a  friendly  prophet.  George  Eliot,  speaking  of  Savonarola, 
says :  "Perhaps  no  man  has  ever  had  a  mighty  influence  over  his 
fellows  without  having  the  innate  need  to  dominate,  and  this  need 
usually  becomes  the  more  imperious  in  proportion  as  the  compli- 
cations of  life  make  self  inseparable  from  a  purpose  which  is 
not  selfish."  Unconsciously  a  minister  with  a  forceful  person- 
ality may  so  grasp  and  hold  a  church  under  his  leadership  that 
his  people's  initiative  and  individualities  have  no  room  for  free 
expression  in  its  work.  It  is  not  an  incorporation  of  many  per- 
sons, whose  judgments,  sympathies  and  energies  are  joined  in 
an  unconstrained  fellowship,  but  a  single  person  supported  by 
acquiescent  and  unoriginal  satellites.  It  is  not  a  league  of  friends, 
each  of  whom  accepts  his  responsibility  and  is  stimulated  to 
creative  thought  and  effort,  but  a  despotism  in  which  each  con- 


152  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

sents  to  suppress  himself  and  back  up  a  leader  who  plans  the 
enterprise  for  him. 

And  the  name  suggests  that  he  must  be  eyes  to  his  church,  and 
(if  one  may  use  the  term)  -feelers,  to  detect  opportunities  for 
service  and  find  a  way  in.  It  is  proverbially  easy  for  a  minister 
to  become  confined  to  fixed  circles  in  the  community.  They  are 
naturally  the  circles  which  are  closest  to  his  own  congregation, 
and  for  that  very  reason  often  least  in  want  of  the  church's  min- 
istry. A  minister  finds  himself  asked  again  and  again  to  meet- 
ings or  social  gatherings  where  he  can  predict  beforehand  the 
faces  he  will  see — admirable  people,  but  not  those  who  most  need 
him.  In  every  town  there  are  a  number  of  circles — the  labor 
group,  the  advanced  social  radicals,  the  intellectuals,  the  artistic 
or  musical  coterie — without  much  connexion  with  the  church. 
Let  him  cultivate  every  opening  given  him  into  them.  They  will 
help  him  to  view  the  church  from  the  outside,  to  discover  the  im- 
pression it  is  giving  those  who  see  its  work  at  long  range,  and  he 
will  come  back  from  them  with  new  visions  of  what  its  work  should 
be.  He  will  establish  contacts  with  them  that  will  enable  him 
and  his  company  of  friends  to  serve  them.  Had  not  Mr.  Great- 
heart  looked  out  of  the  window,  he  had  never  caught  sight  of  Mr. 
Fearing. 

And  if  he  be  friend-in-chief  he  must  lead  by  the  completeness 
of  his  devotion.  No  man  can  be  a  pastor  and  have  another  career 
besides.  Ministers  who  try  to  combine  the  pastorate  with  other 
work  soon  discover  the  impossibility  of  the  mixture.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  a  versatile  man  may  not  have  a  many-sided  ministry 
and  use  various  approaches  to  men ;  but  if  he  be  a  pastor,  he  must 
in  everything  which  he  attempts  have  the  single  aim  of  placing 
his  life  next  to  the  lives  of  men  that  through  him  Christ  may  lay 
hold  of  them.  In  leading  the  church's  ministry  of  friendship  he 
must  agree  with  himself:  "this  one  thing  I  do." 

Finally,  the  title  may  serve  to  remind  him  of  the  unique  friendly 
service  he  is  to  accord  the  company  of  friends  he  leads.  He  is  to 


THE  MINISTRY  OF  FRIENDSHIP  153 

be  the  interpreter  to  them  of  their  experiences ;  the  guide  to  high 
place  of  vision,  whence  they  look  up  and  out ; 

The  very  opener  and  intelligencer 

Between  the  grace,  the  sanctities  of  heaven 

And  their  dull  workings. 

You  recall  the  shepherds  with  the  significant  names,  Knowledge, 
Experience,  Watchful  and  Sincere  (the  four  requisites  of  Bun- 
yan's  ideal  pastor),  whom  Christian  and  Hopeful  met  on  the  De- 
lectable Mountains,  who  "looked  very  lovingly  upon  them,"  and 
"had  them  to  the  top  of  a  high  hill,  called  Clear,  and  gave  them 
their  glass  to  look"  at  the  Celestial  City.  The  pilgrims  "could 
not  look  steadily  through  the  glass ;  yet  they  thought  they  saw 
something  like  the  gate  and  also  some  of  the  glory  of  the  place." 


LECTURE  VIII 
MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY 

IN  the  Memoirs  of  Nehemiah  there  is  a  striking  description  of  his 
first  inspection  of  the  ruined  Jerusalem,  when  he  had  returned 
to  take  up  the  task  of  its  rebuilding:  "I  rose  in  the  night,  I  and 
some  few  men  with  me.  And  I  went  out  by  night  by  the  valley 
gate,  even  toward  the  jackal's  well,  and  to  the  dung  gate,  and 
viewed  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  which  were  broken  down,  and 
the  gates  thereof  were  consumed  with  fire.  Then  went  I  up  in  the 
night  by  the  brook,  and  viewed  the  wall:  and  I  turned  back,  and 
entered  by  the  valley  gate,  and  so  returned.  Then  said  I  unto 
them,  Ye  see  that  evil  case  that  we  are  in,  how  Jerusalem  lieth 
waste,  and  the  gates  thereof  are  burned  with  fire."  We  began 
this  course  of  lectures  with  a  similar  survey  of  our  world  in  pieces, 
and  the  darkness  of  night  is  still  about  us  as  we  scan  the  ruins. 
As  to  Nehemiah  the  destroyed  city  seemed  clearly  a  judgment 
of  God,  so  to  the  eyes  of  faith  this  catastrophe  can  have  no 
other  interpretation.  We  quoted  an  arresting  prophecy  of 
Frederick  Robertson's.  His  biographer,  the  late  Stopford 
Brooke,  with  kindred  insight,  entered  in  his  diary  on  January  1, 
1898 :  "Men  look  forward  to  a  universal  war,  and  now  that  self- 
interest,  that  is  the  Devil  himself,  is  believed  to  be  the  paramount 
and  practical  law  of  life,  there  is  nothing  else  to  look  for.  Per- 
haps we  may  need  the  horrors  of  universal  war  to  teach  poor 
blundering  mankind  that  self-interest  is  not  the  master  idea  of 
nations,  but  their  degradation  and  destruction."  St.  Paul  speaks 
of  delivering  an  offender  "unto  Satan  for  the  destruction  of  the 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  155 

flesh,  that  the  spirit  may  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 
It  would  seem  that  with  ancient  Judah  and  our  modern  world 
God  had  taken  a  similar  course.  The  Satanic  forces  of  irra- 
tional war  have  destroyed  the  fleshly  resources  of  our  civiliza- 
tion— men,  wealth,  famed  cities,  whole  countrysides — as  com- 
pletely as  Babylonian  invaders  broke  down  Jerusalem.  There 
was  a  purification  and  a  strengthening  of  Judah's  spirit  in  her 
ordeal;  and  we  look  for  a  like  cleansing  and  fortifying  of  the 
spirit  of  humanity.  We  already  see  signs  of  it.  Never  before 
have  greater  things  been  offered  to  safeguard  liberty  and  democ- 
racy :  human  lives  in  millions  and  wealth  in  billions  have  been 
poured  out.  Never  before  was  it  so  evident  that  the  arm  of  flesh 
is  no  defence,  and  that  safety  lies  in  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  among 
the  nations  to  maintain  the  bond  of  peace.  Never  before  have  in- 
ternational relations  been  so  searchingly  scrutinized,  and  the 
disease  spots  in  imperialistic  commerce,  tariff  discriminations 
and  threatening  armaments  exposed.  Never  before  has  it  been 
so  generally  recognized  that  a  new  heart  and  a  right  spirit  must 
govern  nations,  or  all  devices  to  preserve  international  order  are 
futile.  And  the  probe  has  been  put  into  other  relations,  notably 
those  of  industry,  with  far-reaching  disclosures.  Undoubtedly 
the  social  control  which  the  war  has  forced  upon  us  in  manu- 
factures, in  commerce,  in  transport,  in  the  distribution  of  food 
and  fuel,  will  not  cease  with  the  coming  of  peace.  This  marks 
a  distinct  advance,  which  the  war  has  hastened. 

Never  came  reformation  in  a  flood 
With  such  a  heady  currance. 

But  men  of  social  insight  are  aware  that  public  control,  how- 
ever valuable,  will  not  better  matters  much  unless  new  motives 
come  into  play,  and  men  become  socially  minded.  Never  was  the 
supreme  need  of  the  social  spirit  so  patent.  It  is  the  day  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  as  the  Fellowship  of  His  Spirit,  with  the  task 
of  spiritualizing  every  sphere  of  human  society. 


156  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

Yea,  even  she  as  at  first, 

Yea,  she  alone  and  none  other, 

Shall  cast  down,  shall  build  up,  shall  bring  home; 
Slake  earth's  hunger  and  thirst, 

Lighten  and  lead  as  a  mother. 

But  the  Fellowship  of  the  Spirit  must  be  free,  for  without  lib- 
erty the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  cannot  be  vigorous.  Hard  battles 
have  been  waged  for  intellectual  freedom  against  those  who  sought 
to  cramp  the  Church's  thought  in  formularies  of  the  past;  and 
the  liberty  of  scholarship  is  widely  conceded.  But  there  are  as 
grave  dangers  from  the  tyranny  of  nationalism,  which  would  en- 
slave the  Church  to  the  State  (a  peril  as  threatening  in  a  democ- 
racy with  its  often  intolerant  majority  as  under  other  forms  of 
government),  and  dangers  from  the  domination  of  capitalism, 
which  renders  religious  organizations  subservient  to  their  chief 
financial  supporters.  The  Church  must  achieve  her  own  inde- 
pendence by  teaching  citizens  clearly  their  duties  to  country  and 
their  obligations  to  the  supernational  Fellowship  of  Jesus,  and 
by  training  her  members,  rich  and  poor,  to  be  more  open- 
minded,  more  fraternal,  more  considerate  of  one  another,  and 
more  completely  obedient  to  the  self-emptying  mind  of  Christ. 
There  were  powers  in  the  land  of  Nehemiah's  day — Sanballat  the 
Horonite,  and  Tobiah  the  servant,  the  Ammonite,  and  Geshem  the 
Arabian,  who  had  to  be  got  out  of  the  way  by  the  assertion  of 
superior  authority,  or  Jerusalem  would  never  have  been  rebuilt. 

This  liberty  is  not  something  which  needs  to  be  claimed  for 
the  minister  alone,  but  for  the  Church.  Nothing  is  more  neces- 
sary than  that  the  Church  should  come  to  self-consciousness  as  a 
fellowship  with  ties  uniting  brethren  in  Christ  which  are  stronger 
than  those  of  kinship,  of  country  and  of  economic  class.  It  has 
sometimes  been  objected  against  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
that  he  stresses  ecclesiastical  rather  than  human  relations,  and 
makes  Christ  emphasize  love  of  fellow-Christians  rather  than  love 
of  fellow-men.  Apart  from  the  critical  question  of  his  accuracy 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  157 

in  interpreting  the  Master  (and  much  might  be  said  on  the  re- 
lations to  one  another  which  Jesus  sought  to  establish  in  His 
group  of  disciples),  all  social  obligations  lie  about  us  in  concen- 
tric circles ;  we  learn  fellowship  in  the  smaller  zone  first,  and  then 
use  it  in  the  more  inclusive  zones  beyond.  The  Church  conscious 
of  herself  as  the  Fellowship  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  must  assert 
and  use  her  own  independence,  if  she  is  to  be  in  advance  of  the 
world,  and  lead  into  the  fellowship  of  the  great  community. 

The  Lyman  Beecher  Lectureship  is  on  "the  special  work  of 
the  Christian  ministry,"  and  the  present  lecturer  has  spoken  of 
the  ministry  of  the  Church  more  than  of  that  of  the  Church's  min- 
isters. The  minister  is  nothing  apart  from  the  Church.  Too 
often  he  has  been  looked  upon  as  a  specially  trained  individual  in 
the  community,  a  professional  man,  like  the  physician  or  the  law- 
yer or  the  school-teacher.  True  he  has  personal  relations  with 
the  community  in  which  he  lives,  and  it  is  a  good  thing  for  any 
place  to  number  among  its'  residents  a  physician  of  souls,  an 
adviser  in  morals,  a  teacher  of  the  things  of  the  spirit ;  but  his 
relations  with  the  community  are  not  primary.  He  is  the  leader 
of  a  distinct  group  within  it,  and  related  to  a  larger  group 
throughout  the  world.  He  is  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ;  his  significance  is  not  mainly  personal,  however  enriching 
may  be  his  endowments;  it  is  representative.  He  is  the  trained, 
commissioned,  installed  pastor  of  a  Christian  Church.  It  is  the 
Church  through  which  he  has  derived  his  life  with  God,  the 
Church  to  which  he  has  dedicated  himself  for  the  world,  the 
Church  which  accredits  him  as  her  leader,  which  supports  and 
sustains  him  in  his  ministry,  and  it  is  the  Church  which  it  is  his 
duty  to  build  up  and  make  effective  in  its  God-given  task  of 
establishing  the  righteous  community.  It  is  not  his  ministry  that 
is  of  first  importance,  but  the  Church's  ministry  in  which  he  leads. 
You  and  I  may  count  in  remaking  the  world  as  citizens,  kinsmen, 
friends ;  but  our  distinctive  contribution  is  not  as  individuals,  but 
through  the  Church,  whose  ministers  we  are. 


158  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

A  social  vision  sometimes  leads  a  minister  to  lose  sight  of  his 
church,  and  devote  himself  to  various  personal  efforts  for  the  bet- 
terment of  society.  To  the  extent  that  he  acts  apart  from  his 
congregation  he  ceases  to  be  a  representative  and  a  leader  of  his 
group,  and  becomes  merely  an  individual,  however  effective  and 
forceful.  His  social  vision  is  not  sufficiently  social,  or  he  would 
see  that  it  is  with  and  through  his  church  that  his  work  for  the 
community  must  be  done.  It  is  always  more  difficult  to  induce 
a  group  to  think  and  act  together,  than  to  think  and  act  for  one's 
self;  but  the  minister  has  made  his  choice  when  he  gives  himself 
to  the  leadership  of  the  church.  That  and  no  other  is  his  all- 
absorbing  life  work.  Henceforth  he  can  do  nothing  publicly  in  a 
private  capacity.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  it  is  wise  for 
a  pastor  to  take  a  conspicuous  part  in  politics  or  in  social  move- 
ments. He  cannot  well  become  a  prominent  party  man,  or 
identify  himself  with  the  propaganda  of  some  economic  pro- 
gramme. He  is  the  leader  of  a  fellowship  which  includes  men 
and  women  of  various  political  views  and  social  theories.  He  has 
his  personal  rights,  and  there  may  be  occasions  when  he  feels 
called  on  to  take  a  public  stand  as  a  citizen.  But  he  has  rights 
as  an  individual  not  to  use  them,  but  to  subordinate  them  to  his 
calling  of  uniting,  organizing  and  inspiring  a  company  of  friends 
of  Christ,  whom  he  leads  in  their  collective  effort  for  the  rebuild- 
ing of  society  into  a  commonwealth  of  God.  His  aim  is  not  to 
get  certain  things  done  in  the  community,  admirable  as  they  may 
be,  but  to  develop  men  and  women  who  will  of  themselves  seek  to 
set  up  a  Christian  social  order,  which  includes  these  things  and 
vastly  more.  He  must  distinguish  between  immediate  results, 
which  may  be  accomplished  by  direct  effort  today  or  tomorrow, 
and  results  which  require  time,  and  which  he  may  not  live  to 
see.  He  will  sometimes  have  to  sacrifice  instant  gains  for  the 
sake  of  larger  returns  in  the  future.  Jesus  saw  Satan  fallen  as 
lightning,  not  when  He  had  Himself  cast  out  a  legion  of  demons, 
but  when  He  inspired  a  few  disciples  with  the  faith  and  purpose 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  159 

to  assail  the  kingdom  of  darkness  and  they  reported  their  first 
successful  assaults. 

Satan  is  not  to  be  cast  out  and  a  world  rebuilt  save  as  the 
whole  Fellowship  is  committed  to  the  task.  The  minister's  work 
is  always  with  the  Church.  On  the  stirring  pages  of  Nehemiah 
the  entire  community  is  seen  repairing  Jerusalem,  each  "for  his 
district"  and  "every  one  over  against  his  own  house,"  the  devout 
governor  inspiring  the  people  with  "a  mind  to  work."  In  the 
summer  of  1560,  after  the  French  forces  had  sailed  away  from 
Scotland,  John  Knox,  now  free  to  return  to  his  charge  in  Edin- 
burgh, preached  to  crowded  congregations  in  St.  Giles  from  the 
prophecy  of  Haggai  on  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple.  "The  doc- 
trin,"  he  tells  us,  speaking  of  himself  in  the  third  person,  "was 
proper  for  the  tyme;  in  application  quhairof  he  was  so  speciall 
and  so  vehement  that  sum  (having  greater  respect  to  the  warld 
than  to  Goddis  glory),  feling  thair  selffis  prickit,  said  in  mockage, 
'We  mon  now  forget  our  selffis,  and  beir  the  barrow  to  buyld  the 
housses  of  God.'  '  We  must  inspire  or  shame  the  entire  Church 
to  a  like  self-forgetfulness  and  self-absorption  in  the  great  cause, 
if  the  fragments  of  a  world  in  pieces  are  to  be  gathered  up,  and 
an  earth  rebuilt  which,  in  every  part  of  its  life,  can  be  a  habita- 
tion of  God  in  the  Spirit. 

Great  times  often  enlarge  people — at  least  those  who  are 
capable  of  enlargement.  There  have  been  Lilliputians  in  the 
most  spacious  days,  for  some  souls  are  born  small  and  stay  so ; 
but  a  big  task  marvellously  magnifies  its  devotees.  You  and  I 
may  congratulate  ourselves  that  we  are  to  lead  the  Church  in  a 
day  when  it  cannot  have  less  than  a  world  outlook  nor  a  smaller 
purpose  than  the  regeneration  of  the  entire  social  order.  That 
prospect  should  greaten  both  us  and  our  people.  Boswell,  with 
his  observing  eyes,  has  left  us  an  impression  of  the  young  William 
Wilberforce,  the  future  emancipator,  in  an  early  political  speech 
which  he  heard  him  deliver  in  Castle  Yard  at  York  against  the 
Coalition  Ministry  with  its  support  of  what  he  termed  the  Un- 


160  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

holy  Alliance.  "I  saw,"  says  Boswell,  "what  seemed  a  mere  shrimp 
mount  upon  the  table;  but,  as  I  listened,  he  grew  and  grew  until 
the  shrimp  became  a  whale."  The  Church  of  the  past  has  often 
disgusted  big-minded  men  by  its  pettiness.  Its  ministers  have 
seemed  to  be  busied  in  trifles  and  their  task  has  not  appealed  to 
young  men  with  largest  capacities  of  brain  and  heart.  But  the 
Church  of  today  faces  frankly  the  mightiest  of  undertakings — 
the  supply  of  explicit  Christian  ideals  for  all  social  groups,  and 
for  every  man  in  his  various  relations,  and  the  supply  of  Divine 
power  to  attain  them.  Its  ministers  must  say  with  Nehemiah: 
"Come,  and  let  us  build  up  the  wall  of  Jerusalem,  that  we  be  no 
more  a  reproach ;"  like  him,  we  must  be  able  from  conviction  born 
of  experience  to  tell  them  of  the  hand  of  our  God  which  is  good 
upon  us ;  and  draw  from  them  the  response,  "Let  us  rise  up  and 
build." 

What,  then,  are  some  of  the  outstanding  characteristics  to  be 
sought  in  those  who  would  lead  the  Church's  ministry  in  this  day 
of  social  rebuilding? 

First,  vision.     We  must  be  dreamers  of  dreams. 

They,  in  the  ages  lying 

In  the  buried  past  of  the  earth, 
Built  Nineveh  with  their  sighing, 

And  Babel  itself  in  their  mirth; 
And  o'erthrew  them  with  prophesying 

To  the  old  of  a  new  world's  worth : 
For  each  age  is  a  dream  that  is  dying, 

Or  one  that  is  coming  to  birth. 

That  which  is  dying  seems  to  us  a  hideous  nightmare.  We  must 
often  feel  ourselves  in  such  a  mad  world  that  we  wonder  whether 
we  are  not  moving  in  a  frightful  trance,  and  long  for  the  morn- 
ing to  waken  us  out  of  our  horrors  and  terrors  with  the  assur- 
ance that  they  exist  only  in  our  disordered  brains.  But  they  are 
the  grim  realities.  Men  have  dreamt  wickedly,  dreamt  in  greed 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  161 

and  pride  and  lust  of  power,  and  their  dreams  have  come  to  pass, 
not  as  they  anticipated,  but  as  such  dreams  are  realized  in  the 
exposing  judgment  of  God.  We  wonder,  now,  that  only  an  occa- 
tional  seer,  like  Robertson,  or  Brooke,  prophesied  the  impending 
catastrophe.  And  it  is  easier  to  dream  an  age's  death  than  an 
age's  birth.  In  a  note  to  the  chorus  of  his  Hellas,  Shelley  wrote : 
"Prophecies  of  wars,  and  rumours  of  war,  etc.,  may  safely  be 
made  by  poet  or  prophet  in  any  age,  but  to  anticipate  however 
darkly  a  period  of  regeneration  and  happiness  is  a  more  hazard- 
ous exercise  of  the  faculty  which  bards  possess  or  feign."  But 
that  is  our  duty.  We  have  spoken  of  our  time  as  a  day  of  wist- 
fulness.  Its  gloom  has  forced  men  to  brighten  the  skyline  with 
hopes.  We  must  fill  out  the  less  than  Christian  expectations 
cherished  by  those  who  have  left  God  in  Christ  out  of  their  reck- 
oning. Believing  in  the  possibility  and  in  the  necessity  of  a  world 
based  on  and  pervaded  by  love,  we  must  body  it  forth  in  pictures, 
as  John  on  Patmos  beheld  and  portrayed  the  holy  city  coming 
down  from  God  out  of  heaven.  There  can  be  no  preaching  and 
no  worship  without  imagination.  The  invisible  must  be  made 
vivid  and  compelling  to  the  eyes  of  men's  hearts.  Charles  II  once 
asked  the  scholarly  John  Owen  how  a  courtly  man  such  as  he 
could  sit  and  listen  to  an  illiterate  tinker  like  John  Bunyan. 
"May  it  please  your  Majesty,"  came  the  reply,  "could  I  possess 
that  tinker's  abilities  for  preaching,  I  would  most  gladly  relin- 
quish all  my  learning."  Our  task  is  to  fill  men's  minds  with  a 
new  Pilgrim's  Progress  out  of  a  condemned  social  order  into 
one  after  the  heart  of  Christ,  and  to  paint  the  new  celestial  city 
as  concretely  and  with  far  minuter  ethical  detail  than  Bunyan 
sketched  that  of  which  his  pilgrims  had  sight  from  the  Delectable 
Mountains. 

We  have  to  see  and  describe  life  fulfilled  in  God  in  the  terms  of 
our  day.  We  have  to  fancy  what  a  household's  ways,  a  factory's 
work,  a  farm's  life,  a  school's  studies,  a  community's  pleasures, 
a  nation's  influence,  a  church's  ministry,  would  be  like,  were  they 


162  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

controlled  by  such  love  as  was  divinely  commended  to  us  on  Cal- 
vary. We  have  to  make  our  listeners  see  themselves  as  kinsmen, 
friends,  toilers,  citizens,  patriots,  churchmen  in  Christ  Jesus. 
We  have  to  stir  them  to  hail  from  afar  a  "brave  new  world  that 
has  such  people  in't."  We  must  be  constantly  building  castles  in 
the  air.  Suppose  they  are  "in  the  air ;"  that  is  where  they  should 
be,  aloft  and  conspicuous ;  gradually  the  foundations  of  many 
generations  can  be  raised  up  to  give  them  solid  and  substantial 
substructure.  It  is  our  mission  to  fill  the  horizon  of  men's  minds 
with  gleaming  walls  and  turrets.  Nothing  is  comparable  in 
haunting  power  to  the  ideal  made  concrete  in  vision.  Men  must 
see  what  may  be,  before  they  will  resolve  that  it  is  so  good  that 
they  will  venture  their  all  to  make  it  come  true.  In  every  section 
of  life  upon  which  we  look — a  heart's  sorrow,  a  nation's  ambition, 
a  union's  struggle,  a  child's  hopefulness — we  must  see  what  is  not 
there,  but  what  may  be  there  when  the  waiting  God  is  allowed  to 
come  in  and  reign.  This  is  a  time  for  believing,  dreaming,  dream- 
ing in  the  presence  of  God  in  Christ.  While  we  muse,  the  fire 
kindles,  and  we  speak  and  make  men  fellow-conscripts  of  the  vision 
splendid. 

Second,  moral  intuition.  Builders  of  a  new  world  must  feel  at 
their  fingers'  tips  when  things  are  right — when  nations,  when 
industrial  relations,  when  men  in  every  touch  of  life  on  life,  are 
adjusted  according  to  the  will  of  God. 

Intuition  is  not  a  substitute  for  information.  Social  solutions, 
like  scientific  discoveries,  occur  only  to  prepared  minds.  Many 
dreamers  of  things  that  might  be  fail  through  ignorance  of  things 
that  have  already  proven  undesirable.  New  faiths  turn  out  old 
heresies;  new  projects  for  social  betterment  old  mirages;  new  the- 
ories of  conduct  old  vices.  This  is  no  time  for  would-be  ministers 
to  "flutter  off,  all  unfledged,  into  theology."  Never  had  men  in 
the  pulpit  more  urgent  need  of  a  thorough  and  ever-continuing 
education  in  history,  in  philosophy,  in  economics,  and  of  as  thor- 
ough a  knowledge  of  living  men  and  women.  Our  task  is  to  teach 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  163 

people  how  to  live  together  in  God  in  families,  industries,  nations, 
and  in  the  earth-wide  brotherhood  of  mankind.  This  is  no  task 
for  a  tyro.  You  will  recall  from  college  days  the  passage  in 
Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  in  which  Socrates  satirizes  Euthy- 
dernos,  the  bumptious  youth  who,  without  instruction  or  expe- 
rience, offers  himself  as  a  leader  in  public  affairs.  He  pictures 
him  coming  forward  as  a  physician  with  as  meagre  an  equip- 
ment. "I,  O  men  of  Athens,"  he  fancies  him  saying,  "have  never 
learned  the  medical  art  from  anyone,  nor  have  been  desirous  that 
any  physician  should  be  my  instructor;  for  I  have  constantly 
been  on  my  guard  not  only  against  learning  anything  of  the  art 
from  anyone,  but  even  against  appearing  to  have  learned  the 
medical  art ;  nevertheless,  confer  on  me  this  medical  appointment ; 
for  I  will  endeavor  to  learn  by  making  experiments  on  you." 
There  is  point  in  that  for  leaders  in  so  infinitely  complex  an  en- 
terprise as  the  refashioning  of  the  social  order.  Not  that  it  is 
our  duty  to  discuss  the  details  of  economic  and  political  theories, 
or  to  work  out  policies  for  nations  or  plans  for  business  enter- 
prises. The  better  informed  we  are,  the  likelier  we  shall  be  to 
restrict  ourselves  rigidly  to  our  task  as  ministers  of  the  Gospel 
of  Christ.  But  we  need  thoroughly  informed  minds  to  fulfil  our 
duty  of  holding  up  the  Christian  ideal  for  the  various  social 
situations  of  our  age. 

Information,  however,  is  of  little  worth  to  us  without  moral 
intuition — that  tact  of  conscience  which  discerns  Christian  and 
antichristian  elements  in  any  event  or  circumstance.  On  Septem- 
ber 13,  1870,  Richard  W.  Church,  shortly  to  become  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's,  wrote  to  his  friend,  Dr.  Asa  Gray,  the  Harvard  bota- 
nist: "What  have  been  your  thoughts  during  this  wonderful  two 
months?  How  is  one  to  judge?  What  is  one  to  wish?  It  is 
easy  to  condemn  French  insolence,  to  rejoice  over  so  signal  a 
vengeance,  to  admire  German  thoroughness  and  devotion,  to  be 
enthusiastic  over  military  skill  and  success  such  as  the  world 
seems  never  to  have  seen  the  like  of;  but  it  is  as  easy  to  see  that 


164  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

ever  since  Count  Bismarck  guided  Germany,  Germany,  if  trium- 
phant and  mighty,  has  caught  the  audacity  and  unscrupulousness 
of  the  Prussia  of  Frederick  the  Great ;  that  she  has  taken  to 
picking  quarrels,  that  her  policy  has  been  provocative  and  dis- 
quieting, that  this  very  war  with  France,  of  which  undoubtedly 
French  folly  and  wickedness  gave  the  signal,  is  the  very  thing  to 
serve  the  Prussian  statesmen's  end — the  welding  together,  by  a 
bloody  and  successful  struggle,  North  and  South  Germany.  With 
all  my  wishes  for  a  grand  and  united  Vaterland,  the  means  which, 
it  seems  to  me,  have  been  deliberately  chosen  to  bring  it  about  are 
simply  hateful ;  as  hateful  as  Napoleon's  coup  d'etat  and  demoral- 
ising despotism  which  have  succeeded  for  nearly  twenty  years  in 
making  France  the  first  nation  of  Europe.  I  believe  that  the 
law  of  retributive  justice  is  for  Germany  as  well  as  for  France, 
and  that  from  one,  as  from  the  other,  it  will  wait  to  claim  its 
due."  There  speaks  an  acute  spiritual  perception,  akin  to  that 
of  an  Amos  in  his  judgment  of  the  nations  of  his  world,  and  to 
that  of  a  greater  Prophet  who  saw  when  the  things  which  belong 
unto  peace  were  hidden  from  a  people's  eyes. 

Leaders  of  the  Church  must  be  able  to  sense  the  ethical  situa- 
tion in  the  lives  of  men  and  women  and  of  communities.  Without 
this  discernment  there  can  be  no  constructive  preaching  or  plan- 
ning of  the  Church's  work.  More  profoundly  than  King  Lear 
dreamed,  they  must  take  upon  themselves  the  mystery  of  things 
as  God's  spies,  feeling  out  the  hidden  hindrances  to  His  will, 
and  entering  in  believing  vision  the  promised  land  of  His  pur- 
pose to  report  its  goodly  conditions  to  lure  His  people  on. 

It  is  moral  intuition  in  men  which  appreciates  Christ.  I  once 
asked  a  group  of  Chinese  pastors  and  teachers  in  an  interior 
town  what  it  was  in  Christ  that  most  impressed  them.  None  of 
them  mentioned  the  account  of  any  miracle;  Chinese  mythology 
could  outdo  the  marvels  recorded  on  gospel  pages.  Various  re- 
plies were  given  when  one  elderly  man  said:  "His  washing  His 
disciples'  feet,"  and  a  sudden  general  consensus  showed  that  this 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  165 

incident  was  peculiarly  appealing  to  them.  That  a  revered 
Teacher  should  overstep  the  lines  of  class  and  position  and  take 
a  slave's  place  was  an  impressive  moral  miracle.  We  ministers 
have  to  embody  in  ourselves  the  mind  that  was  in  Christ,  if  we  are 
to  be  received  as  His  representatives ;  and  that  demands  a  keen 
sensitiveness  of  conscience  in  the  ordering  of  our  own  lives.  We 
have  to  guide  the  Church  to  incarnate  it  in  her  fellowship,  if  she 
is  to  commend  reverence  as  the  Body  of  Christ.  All  our  teaching 
must  impress  men  with  a  spiritual  penetration,  or  they  will  not 
follow  us  into  the  secret  place,  where,  behind  what  we  say,  they 
find  for  themselves  the  mind  of  God  for  them  and  their  world. 

Third,  sympathy.  A  few  years  ago  the  engineers  who  were 
charged  with  the  construction  of  the  new  Grand  Central  Terminal 
in  New  York  City  faced  the  difficult  problem  of  building  new 
tracks  on  new  levels,  while  they  kept  the  existing  traffic  in  full 
operation  and  had  the  trains  arriving  and  leaving  on  schedule.  In 
part  it  was  a  problem  of  sympathy — sympathy  with  the  needs 
of  the  future,  so  that  adequate  facilities  for  years  to  come  might 
be  supplied;  sympathy  with  the  existing  plan,  so  that,  although 
palpably  obsolete,  they  would  keep  it  going  with  as  little  inter- 
ruption as  possible.  It  would  have  been  much  easier,  of  course, 
could  traffic  have  been  suspended  while  the  new  station  was  being 
prepared.  There  were  many  parts  of  the  work  which  had  to  be 
carried  on  under  unusual  risks  to  the  workmen  and  with  extraor- 
dinary difficulties.  All  social  rebuilding  has  to  be  undertaken 
under  similar  conditions.  Things  as  they  are  must  be  kept  going 
at  their  best,  while  we  prepare  things  as  they  ought  to  be.  A 
Christian  minister  must  help  men  to  do  their  business,  earn  their 
profits  or  wages,  buy  and  sell,  in  an  economic  order  which  is  un- 
fraternal  and  often  glaringly  unjust,  while  he  opens  their  minds 
to  social  sins  and  enlists  them  to  alter  industrial  adjustments  to 
conform  to  the  mind  of  Christ.  He  must  enable  the  members  of 
his  congregation  to  reach  God  by  the  existing  tracks  of  their, 
perhaps  antiquated,  theological  opinions,  while  he  attempts  to 


166  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

furnish  them  with  better  terminal  facilities  which  will  bring  more 
of  them — head,  heart,  conscience — into  the  life  with  God.  He  must 
keep  his  people  faithful  to  their  patriotic  duty  under  conditions 
that  are  manifestly  subchristian,  and  terribly  sub,  while  he  tries 
with  them  to  reshape  international  relations,  in  which  loyalty 
to  country  will  place  no  man  in  an  unchristian  attitude  towards 
any  brother  on  the  face  of  God's  earth. 

This  requires  an  inclusive  sympathy.  Many  reformers  and 
idealists  fail  in  their  appreciation  of  that  which  imperfect  pres- 
ent contrivances  are  accomplishing.  They  want  to  smash  what 
is,  and  get  it  out  of  the  way;  they  would  tear  up  existing  tracks 
and  fling  the  rails  on  the  scrap-heap.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
staunch  and  steadfast  workers,  operating  the  traffic  on  the  pres- 
ent lines  with  considerable  success,  become  furiously  enraged  at 
those  who  propose  such  a  thing  as  a  new  terminal.  True,  pres- 
ent lines  do  not  bring  all  the  people  to  their  destination  in  a 
brotherly  city  of  God;  but  they  understand  this  social  system, 
have  worked  it,  and  point  with  pride  to  the  numbers  of  passengers 
it  is  annually  carrying  to  upright,  useful  and  comfortable  life. 
We  must  do  justice  to  existing  ideals  in  business,  in  charity,  in 
patriotism,  in  the  Church  of  God.  We  must  never  enlist  an  ideal 
against  us,  but  overtop  it  with  an  ideal  still  higher,  into  which 
it  will  merge  in  men's  view  as  a  foothill  becomes  part  of  a  moun- 
tain. 

It  is  difficult  to  keep  one's  mind  and  heart  moving  in  two  worlds 
at  once — hard  to  preach  and  practice  patriotism  along  present 
nationalist  lines,  and  at  the  same  time  be  entering  into  and  think- 
ing in  the  commonwealth  of  nations  that  shall  be;  hard  to  order 
one's  own  affairs  and  assist  one's  people  to  be  industrious  and 
faithful  under  the  present  economic  system,  and  keep  one's  con- 
science planning  and  preparing,  and  one's  teaching  holding  up, 
a  more  fraternal  order  to  take  its  place;  hard  to  be  a  loyal  min- 
ister in  a  communion  of  the  present  disunited  Church  of  Christ, 
and  to  show  one's  people  how  to  be  enthusiastic  and  devoted 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  167 

churchmen  in  it,  while  one  lives  in  feeling  in  the  inclusive  Church 
of  one's  hope  and  trains  a  congregation  to  disesteem  everything 
in  the  existing  organization  and  life  of  the  Church  which  is  less 
catholic  than  they  must  seek  to  render  the  Church  of  tomorrow. 
Lowell  saw  that  problem  a  generation  ago,  when  he  wrote: 

He  who  would  win  the  name  of  truly  great 
Must  understand  his  own  age  and  the  next, 
And  make  the  present  ready  to  fulfil 
Its  prophecy,  and  with  the  future  merge 
Gently  and  peacefully,  as  wave  with  wave. 

Fourth,  daring.  Sympathy  with  the  good  in  what  is  may  hold 
us  cautiously  to  it,  when  we  ought  to  be  moving  out  and  up  into 
what  should  be.  When  one  recalls  that  leaders  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  its  earliest  period  were  spoken  of  with  bated  breath  as 
"these  that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down,"  one  feels  like 
saying  of  their  living  successors,  as  Cowper  makes  Alexander 
Selkirk  say  of  the  beasts  on  his  island :  "Their  tameness  is  shock- 
ing to  me."  All  great  institutions  must  be  conservative :  they  are 
custodians  of  values  they  dare  not  put  in  jeopardy.  One  would 
not  have  the  Church  less  careful  in  safeguarding  its  doctrine,  in 
preserving  approved  customs  in  worship,  in  exercising  prudence 
before  it  commits  itself  to  innovations  in  social  theory.  But  to 
employ  love  like  Christ's,  and  such  love  only,  as  a  guiding  prin- 
ciple in  practical  affairs,  cannot  be  other  than  revolutionary.  A 
Christian  Church  must  be  a  company  of  venturesome  spirits. 
But,  as  someone  has  well  said,  many  people  when  they  put  off 
the  old  man  put  on  the  old  woman.  Most  churches  are  excessively 
timid.  We  have  need  to  preach  again  and  again  sermons  like 
the  two  Samuel  Rutherford  preached  at  a  critical  juncture  in  the 
history  of  the  Scottish  Kirk,  on  the  text :  "Fear  not,  thou  worm 
Jacob."  Faint-heartedness  is  a  perennial  ecclesiastical  vice; 
rarely  does  the  Church  give  a  community  intrepid  leadership  in 
the  way  of  righteousness.  Of  how  few  congregations  can  it  be 


168  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

said,  as  Deborah  sang  of  the  two  tribes;  "Zebulun  was  a  people 
that  jeoparded  their  lives  unto  the  death,  and  Naphthali  upon  the 
high  places  of  the  field."  Office-bearers  are  generally  chosen  from 
those  who  have  passed  the  adventurous  period  of  life.  It  is  noto- 
rious that  in  Church  synods  the  laymen  are  more  conservative 
than  the  ministers.  As  a  rule  laymen  active  in  affairs  cannot  or 
will  not  find  leisure  for  such  meetings,  and  they  are  filled  with 
elderly  delegates,  who  have  retired  or  partially  retired  from 
their  business.  The  judgment  of  such  men  is  likely,  as  Morley 
says  of  one  of  his  colleagues  in  Gladstone's  last  cabinet,  to  be 
"good  for  all  the  occasions  where  prudence  is  safe,  but  less  good 
for  the  occasions  where  true  prudence  happens  to  demand  a  dose 
of  bold  initiative."  And  office-bearers  are  chosen  almost  exclu- 
sively from  the  conservative  class  in  society;  they  are  business 
or  professional  men,  rarely  workingmen.  In  the  national  assem- 
blies of  our  Protestant  communions  there  are  not  a  half  dozen 
representatives  from  the  ranks  of  unionized  labor.  The  women 
who  are  usually  prominent  in  the  Church's  work  were  aptly  de- 
scribed once  by  a  colored  janitor  in  the  church  I  serve,  who, 
when  he  told  me  that  a  woman,  whose  name  he  had  not  caught, 
wished  to  see  me,  and  was  asked  what  she  looked  like,  replied: 
"A  kind  o'  settled  lookin'  lady,  sir."  A  minister's  training  an- 
chors him  in  the  past ;  he  takes  his  people  back  to  the  Bible,  back 
to  Christ.  And  this,  in  part,  is  well;  but  ours  is  a  day  to  fling 
the  anchor  as  far  ahead  as  we  can  cast  it  into  what  should  be, 
and  haul  the  vessel  up  to  it.  Not  "Back  to  Christ,"  for  we 
cannot  reproduce  the  social  conditions  of  First  Century  Galilee, 
but  "Forward  with  Christ"  into  the  better  country  of  God's 
wished-for  tomorrow. 

Happily  those  who  would  like  to  keep  things  as  they  are  have 
today  a  difficult  case  to  defend.  Things  as  they  are! — our  minds 
go  out  to  northern  France  and  Belgium  and  Armenia  and 
Poland,  to  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  maimed  and  the 
millions  of  graves  where  lie  the  promising  lives  of  a  generation, 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  169 

to  the  debt-piling  governments  of  our  own  and  other  lands. 
When  the  British  captured  Jerusalem,  newspaper  reporters  called 
on  ministers  to  obtain  comments  on  the  taking  of  "the  holy  city." 
Happy  as  we  must  have  been  over  this  success  of  the  Allied 
Cause,  who  could  help  thinking  that  the  British  had  had  for  cen- 
turies London  and  Liverpool  and  Glasgow  and  Manchester,  and 
we,  Americans,  for  scores  of  years,  New  York  and  Chicago  and 
Pittsburgh  and  San  Francisco,  and  we  had  little  to  show  in  the 
way  of  "holy  cities"?  This  is  manifestly  a  time  for  change. 

These  lectures  have  advocated  thoroughgoing  alterations  in 
the  Church's  ministry  and  organization.  Changes  involve  experi- 
ments, and  experiments  are  always  risks.  We  must  be  prepared 
to  hazard  risks  for  ourselves,  and  prepare  our  congregations  to 
hazard  them.  Surely  every  church  can  afford  at  least  one  ven- 
ture a  year;  in  the  face  of  present  scant  success  it  cannot  afford 
less.  Here  are  untouched  elements  in  our  neighborhoods — often 
far  more  numerous  than  those  reached ;  here  are  scores  within  our 
fellowship  ignorant  of  the  principles  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  at  any 
rate  ignorant  of  their  application  to  many  aspects  of  life.  Must 
we  not  make  experiments  to  fulfil  our  ministry?  One  of  New 
England's  first  ministers  entered  in  his  journal  on  the  voyage 
across  the  Atlantic :  "Those  that  love  their  own  chimney  corner 
and  dare  not  fare  beyond  their  owne  towne's  end,  shall  never 
have  the  honor  to  see  the  wonderful  works  of  God." 

The  pastor  who  would  lead  a  congregation  in  social  ascent  to 
the  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus  needs  the  qualities  of  the 
successful  mountaineer:  he  must  be  fearless,  swift,  firm  and  cool- 
headed.  In  every  social  situation  he  must  be  quick  to  see  the 
danger ;  he  must  have  a  sharp  eye  for  the  way  up ;  he  must  know 
how  to  keep  his  head,  and  stand  surefootedly  on  a  dizzy  eminence 
while  he  helps  others  to  clamber  on;  he  must  be  willing  to  take 
risks  in  loyal  confidence  in  a  trusted  Guide.  He  has  to  possess, 
and  to  inspire  his  people  with,  a  believing  boldness. 

And  that  brings  us  to  the  chief  characteristic  which  must  be 


170  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

his — faith,  faith  in  a  God  (as  we  have  said)  big  enough  to  remake 
a  world,  and  good  enough  to  make  it  a  Christian  world.  The 
last  generation  in  its  recovery  of  the  historic  Jesus  Christian- 
ized our  thought  of  God.  We  bow  before  no  deity  less  good  than 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  But  in  Christianizing  His  character,  men 
have  often  parted  with  His  cosmic  control.  A  very  frank  theo- 
logical teacher  once  confessed  in  a  moment  of  confidence:  "I 
haven't  the  least  difficulty  with  the  divinity  of  Jesus;  He  is  the 
God  I  adore.  What  I  want  to  be  assured  of  is  that  there  is  a 
Divinity  like  Him  in  charge  of  the  universe."  In  humanizing  God 
we  have  dwarfed  Him.  The  God  of  many  prayers  and  sermons 
is  a  companionable  Deity  to  whom  men  approach  unawed.  In 
much  religious  intercourse 

the  air 

Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 
Unto  our  gentle  senses.     The  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here. 

This  "heavenly  Pal"  (if  one  may  be  pardoned  the  expression) 
is  so  good  that  He  can  be  counted  on  to  do  all  He  can  to  help 
us  with  a  world  that  has  gone  to  pieces ;  but  one  is  not  convinced 
that  He  is  competent  for  so  gigantic  a  task  as  its  complete  re- 
building. 

Donald  Hankey  describes  a  British  soldier  driven  to  prayer, 
when  left  wounded  out  in  No  Man's  Land  between  the  lines  under 
the  sky.  "His  greatest  religious  'experience'  had  been  a  spas- 
modic loyalty  to  the  Christ-man,  stimulating  him  at  rare  inter- 
vals to  sudden  acts  of  quixotism."  On  his  back,  "he  found  him- 
self wondering  about  the  meaning  of  everything.  The  stars 
seemed  to  make  it  all  seem  so  small  and  petty.  All  this  blood- 
shed— what  was  the  good  of  it?  It  was  all  so  ephemeral,  so 
trivial,  so  meaningless  in  the  presence  of  eternity  and  infinity. 
Eternity  and  infinity  were  so  pitiless  and  uncomprehending.  Yet 
after  all,  he  had  the  advantage  of  them.  For  all  his  pigmy  in- 


MINISTERS  FOR  THE  DAY  171 

effectiveness  he  was  of  finer  stuff  than  they.  At  least  he  could 
feel — suffer.  There  was  that  in  him  that  was  not  in  them,  unless 
it  was  in  everything.  'God!'  he  whispered  softly.  'God  every- 
where!' Then  into  his  tired  brain  came  a  new  phrase^ — 'Under- 
neath are  the  everlasting  arms.' ' 

Yes,  no  God  within  His  world  merely  will  do;  He  must  also  be 
above  and  underneath  it.  "Ascribe  ye  greatness  unto  our  God." 
No  "godlet"  suffices;  we  need  One  who  is  immeasurably  super- 
human, before  whose  displays  of  wisdom  we  are  left  amazed: 
"How  unsearchable  are  His  judgments,  and  His  ways  past  trac- 
ing out;"  we  need  One  for  whom  nothing  is  too  hard.  And  this 
is  the  God  we  discover,  if  we  approach  Him  through  Jesus.  We 
have  not  entered  into  His  experience  unless  in  the  presence  of 
our  most  overwhelming  crises  we  can  say:  "Father,  all  things 
are  possible  unto  Thee."  We  do  not  know  His  resources,  un- 
less with  that  apostle  who  could  not  describe  Him  save  as  "the 
God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  we  keep  reminding 
ourselves,  "God  is  able."  Able  men  for  a  supreme  ministry  are 
produced  by  faith  in  an  able  God — "able  to  do  exceeding  abun- 
dantly, above  all  that  we  ask  or  think,  according  to  the  power 
that  worketh  in  us;"  "able  to  make  all  grace  abound  unto  us, 
that  we  having  always  all  sufficiency  in  everything,  may  abound 
unto  every  good  work."  We  must  begin  with  and  never  leave 
our  companionable  Father,  found  in  Jesus  His  Son,  our  Brother; 
but  we  must  press  out  through  every  aspect  of  the  Universe,  of 
human  history,  of  life's  many-sided  experiences,  to  Him  who  is 
behind  and  in  all — the  Eternal  Beauty  of  whom  all  things  lovely 
are  reflections,  the  Eternal  Truth  apprehended  in  all  knowledge, 
the  Eternal  Right  touching  us  in  every  compelling  ideal,  the 
Ultimate  Source  of  all  existence,  the  Final  End  to  which  all 
travel,  the  Sufficient  Controller  of  all  that  lives  and  moves,  the 
Lasting  Home  in  which  we  and  our  fathers  and  their  children 
and  children's  children  dwell  for  ever.  We  must  train  our  faith 
to  stretch  its  wings  and  use  an  inspired  imagination.  We 


172  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

must  tread  on  shadowy  ground,  must  sink 
Deep — and,  aloft  ascending,  breathe  in  worlds 
To  which  the  heaven  of  heavens  is  but  a  veil.  . 

We  must  stay  ourselves  on  the  Lord  our  God. 

As  in  the  days  of  Nehemiah,  with  whose  visit  to  the  ruins  of 
his  city  we  began  this  study  of  what  is  asked  of  us  who  would 
lead  the  Church's  ministry  in  a  day  of  social  rebuilding,  there 
are  many  at  the  moment  who  are  skeptical  that  we  can  put  up 
anything  but  patchwork  destined  to  crumble  again,  as  the 
foundations  of  many  generations  before  us.  Like  Nehemiah,  we 
are  not  basing  our  hopes  on  the  skill  of  men,  however  able.  A 
man-made  world  is  not  our  object.  Our  faith  rises  to  Him  who 
knows  the  fabric  of  things,  because  He  made  them;  who  knows 
what  is  in  man,  because  His  hands  fashioned  us ;  and  who  waits 
to  fulfil  a  purpose  halted  and  thwarted  by  man's  unwillingness 
to  work  with  Him  in  the  Spirit  of  His  Son.  "When  Sanballat, 
the  Horonite,"  writes  Nehemiah,  "and  Tobiah  the  servant,  the 
Ammonite,  and  Geshem  the  Arabian,  heard  it,  they  laughed  us  to 
scorn,  and  despised  us,  and  said,  What  is  this  thing  that  ye  do? 
Then  answered  I  them,  and  said  unto  them,  The  God  of  heaven, 
He  will  prosper  us;  therefore  we,  His  servants,  will  arise  and 
build." 


CONVERTERS,  Domine,  usquequo?  et  de- 
precabilis  esto  super  servos  tuos.  Lae- 
tati  sumus  pro  diebus  quibus  nos  humili- 
asti,  annis  quibus  vidimus  mala.  Et  sit 
splendor  Domini  Dei  nostri  super  nos;  et 
opera  manuum  nostrarum  dirige  super 
nosy  et  opus  manuum  nostrarum  dirige. 
PSALMUS  LXXXIX,  14,  15,  17. 


LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP  ON  PREACHING 
YALE  UNIVERSITY 

1871-72     Beecher,   H.   W.,   Yale   Lectures   on   Preaching,   first 

series.     New  York,  1872. 
1872-73     Beecher,  H.  W.,  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,  second 

series.     New  York,  1873. 
1873-74     Beecher,   H.   W.,  Yale  Lectures   on   Preaching,   third 

series.     New  York,  1874. 
1874-75     Hall,    John,   God's   Word   through   Preaching.      New 

York,  1875. 
1875-76     Taylor,  William  M.,  The  Ministry  of  the  Word.     New 

York,  1876. 

1876-77     Brooks,  P.,  Lectures  on  Preaching.     New  York,  1877. 
1877-78     Dale,  R.  W.,  Nine  Lectures  on  Preaching.     New  York, 

1878. 
1878-79     Simpson,    M.,    Lectures    on    Preaching.      New    York, 

1879. 
1879-80     Crosby,    H.,    The    Christian    Preacher.      New    York, 

1880. 

1880-81     Duryea,  J.  T.,  and  others  (not  published). 
1881-82     Robinson,  E.  G.,  Lectures  on  Preaching.     New  York, 

1883. 

1882-83      (No  lectures.) 
1883-84     Burton,  N.  J.,  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,  and  other 

writings.     New  York,  1888.* 

1884-85     Storrs,   H.    M.,    The   American    Preacher    (not    pub- 
lished). 


LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP      175 

1885-86  Taylor,  W.  M.,  The  Scottish  Pulpit.  New  York, 
1887. 

1886-87     Gladden,  W.,  Tools  and  the  Man.     Boston,  1893. 

1887-88  Trumbull,  H.  C.,  The  Sunday  School.  Philadelphia, 
1888. 

1888-89  Broadus,  J.  A.,  Preaching  and  the  Ministerial  Life 
(not  published). 

1889-90  Behrends,  A.  J.  F.,  The  Philosophy  of  Preaching. 
New  York,  1890. 

1890-91  Stalker,  J.,  The  Preacher  and  His  Models.  New 
York,  1891. 

1891-92  Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  The- 
ology. New  York,  1893. 

1892-93     Horton,  R.  F.,  Verbum  Dei.    New  York,  1893.* 

1893-94     (No  lectures.) 

1894-95  Greer,  D.  H.,  The  Preacher  and  his  Place.  New  York, 
1895. 

1895-96  Van  Dyke,  H.,  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt.  New 
York,  1896.* 

1896-97     Watson,  J.,  The  Cure  of  Souls.     New  York,  1896. 

1897-98  Tucker,  W.  J.,  The  Making  and  the  Unmaking  of  the 
Preacher.  Boston,  1898. 

1898-99  Smith,  G.  A.,  Modern  Criticism  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. New  York,  1901. 

1899-00  Brown,  J.,  Puritan  Preaching  in  England.  New  York, 
1900. 

1900-01      (No  lectures.) 

1901-02     Gladden,  W.,  Social  Salvation.     New  York,  1902. 

1902-03  Gordon,  G.  A.,  Ultimate  Conceptions  of  Faith.  New 
York,  1903. 

1903-04     Abbott,  L.,  The  Christian  Ministry.     Boston,  1905. 

1904-05  Peabody,  F.  G.,  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Christian  Char- 
acter. New  York,  1905.* 


176  IN  A  DAY  OF  SOCIAL  REBUILDING 

1905-06     Brown,  C.  R.,  The  Social  Message  of  the  Modern  Pul- 
pit.    New  York,  1906. 
1906-07     Forsyth,  P.  T.,  Positive  Preaching  and  Modern  Mind. 

New  York,  1908.* 

1907-08     Faunce,  W.  H.  P.,  The  Educational  Ideal  in  the  Min- 
istry.    New  York,  1908. 
1908-09     Henson,   H.   H.,   The  Liberty  of  Prophesying.      New 

Haven,  1910.* 
1909-10     Jefferson,  C.  E.,  The  Building  of  the  Church.     New 

York,  1910. 
1910-11     Gunsaulus,   F.    W.,    The   Minister    and   the    Spiritual 

Life.     New  York,  Chicago,  1911. 
1911-12     Jowett,   J.   H.,   The   Preacher;   His   Life   and   Work. 

New  York,  1912. 
1912-13     Parkhurst,   C.    H.,   The   Pulpit    and   the   Pew.      New 

Haven,  1913.* 
1913-14     Home,  C.  Silvester,  The  Romance  of  Preaching.     New 

York,  Chicago,  1914. 
1914-15     Pepper,  George  Wharton,  A  Voice   from  the  Crowd. 

New  Haven,  1915.* 
1915-16     Hyde,  William  DeWitt,  The  Gospel  of  Good  Will  as 

Revealed  in  Contemporary  Scriptures.     New  York, 

1916. 
1916-17     McDowell,  William  Fraser,  Good  Ministers   of  Jesus 

Christ.     New  York  and  Cincinnati,  1917. 
1917-18     Coffin,  Henry  Sloane,  In  a  Day  of  Social  Rebuilding. 

New  Haven,  1918.* 
1918-19     Kelman,  John,  The  War  and  Preaching.     New  Haven, 

1919. 


*  Also  published  in  London. 


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